


Alyssa's Tears

by pinkolifant



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Trying hard to be true to the book characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 01:12:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 25
Words: 154,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3671937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkolifant/pseuds/pinkolifant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandor Clegane is climbing from the Mountains of the Moon to the Eyrie and thinking on his past. He may or may not win Sansa Stark in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> A lamentation on the fictional character of Sandor Clegane in various parts.
> 
> Comments, if any, will be greatly appreciated and carefully considered but contrary to my habit of responding to them, will not be replied to.
> 
> Everything belongs to GRRM. In this story, this is even more true than in any other of my ASOIAF inspired stories.
> 
> If you're new to this story, consider making a pause between chapters for first eight chapters because that part was written to be read one bit at the time. Then you can binge read the rest or do whatever.
> 
> Thanks a huge lot for reading.

**Alyssa's Tears**

"I'm honest. It's the world that's awful" - Sandor Clegane, The Hound. ASOIAF

**One**

_His bedding caught fire_ , Father had said.

Father was not such a bad man, but he was a coward where it mattered, more like than not for the love he bore his eldest son and heir.

Love made men weak.

Sandor was six years old. His was the first so-called accident in the family caused by soon-to-be _Ser_ Gregor, his noble brother. It was not to be the last one. He remembered it every morning when he woke; he always felt the brush of twisted skin on the right side of his face on any surface he slept on, be it in a castle or in a sty. He would forget it by the time he pissed, having lived with it now for more than twenty years.

Nevertheless, the sensation was still there every morning as a trusted old friend, to bid him a good day.

Or a day as good as a day could be.

The Mountains of the Moon gaped empty of either game or people. Winter had chased the clansmen to their dwellings so he wouldn't have to kill any. He almost regretted it. Although he knew he was foolish to wish for trouble; many gnats could kill him just as well. That leg that almost did for him was never quite the same as before. And he had a long way to climb.

At least he had gotten to play with the wooden knight before Gregor burned him. The maester gave him ointments. As if that could help.

His little sister had no need of ointments when it was her turn to suffer an accident. She was merely at the wrong place at the wrong time. Without getting to play with any of Gregor's toys, she took a long flight from the battlements of their father's keep. Under the walls, her body had laid broken beyond recognition.

 _Children are known to be curious_ , Father had said, mopping his tears.

Sandor Clegane didn't follow the road. Soon, he would have to leave Stranger behind and become his own horse, dragging as much food as he could take on his back. He didn't relish that moment. So he best get used to going slow. Speed would not take him to the Eyrie, persistence would. _Maybe._

_Maybe not._

The Hound had once travelled with King Robert and his loving family to the Eyrie.

He still remembered that there were parts of the landscape after the Gates of the Moon which could only be crossed by mules and finally, on foot. Probably not even the mules were able to go very high in winter.

But a determined man could arrive at almost any place.

After Sandor's little sister it was their father's turn. With Father dead there was no one to invent the details of the accident that killed him, but Sandor had seen enough to draw his own conclusions. One day, father went hunting with Gregor and returned as a dead body flung over one of the horses. A few of the castle folk went with them to hunt, but no one ever said a word. Not that Sandor waited for them to talk.

As soon as the hunting party passed through the gates, Sandor hid in the stables. Gregor marched to their father's solar, every inch of his eight feet a Lord taking possession of his lands. _Lord Gregor Clegane. Three black dogs on a yellow field are a sigil of the House Clegane,_ maester peeped in the Hound's memories, long forgotten and dead just the same.

On the day when Gregor became lord, Sandor stole a young, bad-tempered black mare from the stables and rode straight for Casterly Rock. He never stopped to look back. He was not yet ten years old and all he knew was that he didn't wish to die. Because if he died, how was he going to kill his brother?

Sandor was now riding in the wild, paying utmost attention to where Stranger put his hooves so that they both reach the Bloody Gate in good condition. And he realised that when he had left home, he was probably as young, as afraid and as angry as Sansa's little sister, Arya, when he had chanced upon her in the riverlands. The only difference between Arya and his younger self was that he had been a boy, he had been uglier, and much taller.

Sandor forced his thoughts away from his past to the present. He had enough food until the Gates of the Moon, maybe for a bit longer. There he would have to buy or steal food for the rest of his journey. _Steal the food for two,_ he let his hopes up only for a moment. The Vale was supposed to still have food left in winter.

Father's was not the last accident.

Gregor married twice. He was lord bannerman to Lord Tywin Lannister, the Warden of the West, and smaller lords hurried to offer him their daughters. Gregor picked delicate, beautiful creatures who loved to sew, sing and dance. It must have given him more joy to break them into pieces. The second wife lasted a bit longer than the first one, Sandor remembered. Gregor would have married for a third time if death didn't put an end to that, no doubt.

Sandor chose not to attend any of the weddings.

(The maester's accident occurred somewhere between those of Gregor's two wives. Sandor no longer lived in Clegane Keep so he never knew when or how.)

He didn't know why the road to the Vale made him think of Gregor all over again. The only thing he ever wanted from his brother since his childhood _accident_ was to kill him. Obviously, wishes are never fulfilled in life. Maybe if they both ended up in seven hells they could kill each other over and over again.

Their mother died shortly after giving birth to their sister. Sandor always wondered if that had been an accident as well, but he was just too young to remember.

The mountain road leading to the Vale wound forward below Stranger and his rider. Sandor was riding a bit above the road, following it behind the second or the third line of the trees. He doggedly searched for the paths that Stranger could cross among the tree trunks, shrubs and irregular, sharp stones. He listened for the sound of any enemy. There wasn't anyone. His scars twitched and puckered in unearthly cold.

_What if she is not there?_

_Then,_ he answered his own question, _you will have climbed for nothing._

He urged the Stranger forward.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to everyone who commented and/or left a kudos on this story.
> 
> Thank you to new readers who are giving this story a chance with insightful, well-meant comments.
> 
> A heartfelt thanks to my old readers who seem to know me well enough to rightfully assume that the mare mentioned in part one was always meant to be Stranger's mother. And that the confusion between the horse and the god of death is made entirely on purpose.

" _I killed my first man at twelve. I've lost count of how many I've killed since then" -_ Sandor Clegane, the Hound. ASOIAF

**Two**

A pup needed a kennel, and his mare a stable.

Casterly Rock had both aplenty.

You were fed and had a place to sleep if you served your lord well. And Gregor was not allowed to kill Lord Tywin's servants. He had to content himself with making his own servants disappear. _And why not?_ the Hound thought with scorn. _There will always be enough scrawny smallfolk to take their places._

Yet the saying went you had to be born a Lannister to love the Rock.

Sandor was not born a Lannister so he had no affection for it. The great, impressive, square fortress looked like solid rock on the outside, and maybe a little bit like a dungeon.

Fortunately, love was not required, only obedience.

And a good dog excelled in that.

Casterly Rock was also Sandor's grandfather's only home before he lost his leg saving his lord's life from an angry lioness. Lord Tytos Lannister, Lord Tywin's father, paid for the leg with lands and a towerhouse and took his son, Sandor's father, to squire. No one paid anything to the three hounds who died in the yellow of the autumn grass. Even now, many years later, Sandor still drew a certain measure of pride from the way his grandfather had earned their sigil. And he still liked dogs better than most people.

Back then, a boy of ten trained in the yard every day; he swung the sword, he rode at the quintain with a knight's lance, he shot at archery targets and learned how to fight with bare hands. He never tired of it. He was determined to be the best man Lord Tywin could possibly have. And to beat bloody every man who so much as smiled at his face.

At eleven he could best most of the grown men-at-arms with the sword. Few dared laughing at him by that time, and most of those who did served Gregor. And Sandor knew he had to be much, much stronger if he ever wanted to kill his brother. It was the only thing he wanted, to kill his brother. Everything he did served that one single purpose.

However, he had to be patient and wait. Just like he had to be patient _now_ when he finally reached the Bloody Gate.

The gate was a miserable wall with twin watchtowers joined by a bridge, set between majestic mountains that lowered their proud heads in a narrow pass precisely at that place.

The cold was in Sandor's veins and it was only going to get worse. Especially without wine to offer him a semblance of warmth. He was still very, very far from the Eyrie, and he had to reassure the guards of his peaceful intentions to allow him to pass.

"Who would pass the Bloody Gate?"

A splotchy blond fellow bellowed from the bridge of ancient grey stone between the towers, arching above the road. Courage must have come easier that way. The lad looked very young and innocent, thin like a rabbit roasted on a spit. The Hound could have killed him left-handed.

But Sandor Clegane had a different purpose now, and only his battered body to achieve it.

"I serve the Faith," he said quietly, under the monk's cowl. "There should be a sept at the Gates of the Moon, or so I heard. It is cold out here," he gestured at the desolation of heights behind his back and waited.

Sandor Clegane didn't serve anyone anymore. He was his own dog now. Yet what he said was not a lie, not entirely. If the gods did not exist, then neither did the Faith. Or if they did, they made the world as awful as it was and it mattered little if the Hound served them or not.

"Your horse looks like it should belong to a knight," the skinny fellow got suspicious.

"There are many dead knights in the riverlands, my lords," the Hound said flatly. "This animal drifted to the Quiet Isle with his dead master. Alas, that septry is no more and we are both searching for a new home."

Calling them my lords was their undoing. The lowborn soldiers at the gate felt flattered and opened it.

"Come, share our fire," one said mercifully, while the Hound was cantering by. The unknowing man was guilty of trust. _Like the little bird used to be in the very beginning when Cersei and Joffrey only had sweet words and false smiles for her. Long before Joff thought of presenting her with her father's head._

The Hound hesitated, still ahorse.

"Your call," another guard, a very old man said. He rekindled the fire, shrugging wisely, "But you won't find any other until the Gates of the Moon unless you make it yourself."

A smell of fried meat filled the air and the dog's mouth began to drool.

"Would you provide a begging brother with some food for on the way?" he asked. "What you can spare?"

He counted the guards. They were six. Only one mute-looking one resembled a warrior. With surprise on his side he could cut through all six of them with ease and just take what he wanted, but there was a small garrison housed in the watchtowers, and a fight would only serve to attract undue attention on himself and his errand. They might go after him. If the little bird was in the Eyrie, she would be guarded too. His only hope was in secrecy.

 _You have lost your mind,_ he thought, _you don't even know if she's there._

_Only one way to find out. You have to climb._

_Florian the Fool!_ he mocked himself as he once derided Sansa and her love of _true_ knights.

"We might give you the leftovers," said the careless, thin, young guard who spoke to Sandor first, yawning, "when we all eat our fill."

Sandor Clegane tied Stranger to a tree, not too close, but never too far. He squatted and ate peacefully with six unknown gnats-at-arms. Also, he continued to remember.

He didn't particularly wish to remember, but it was his life. He could not forget it.

When Sandor was ten, and tall as some lads of sixteen (and he may have silently agreed to a hint of the master-at-arms at the Rock that he was almost twelve at that time, or the man would not let him train as much as he wanted), he was supposed to become a squire, and afterwards, a knight. It was expected from an orphaned younger son of a lesser house with his abilities to fight.

But then, four years after Sandor got his scars, Gregor was knighted. By Rhaegar Targaryen, no less. The Prince of Dragonstone tapped Gregor on his shoulder and said "Arise, Ser Gregor!"

The knightly vows to protect the weak, the women and children, were in all evidence made of horseshit. Sandor Clegane spat on them and vowed never to swear vows. A polite inquiry with the master-at-arms confirmed his belief that he didn't necessarily have to become a squire or a knight, to serve Lord Tywin as a man-at-arms.

Lord Tywin knew the uses of every man in his service. And Sandor soon understood why Gregor was his treasured and well-respected bannerman. Lord Tywin kept him for purposes other men would shrink from, as a scourge of the disobedient nobles and smallfolk in the West. Sandor trained further and wondered what use Lord Tywin was going to find for him one day.

A year or two after Gregor was knighted, the kingdoms went in rebellion. Prince Rhaegar kidnapped and raped some girl from the North. Sandor could readily believe that of the man who knighted his brother. The girl's betrothed, a stormlord, raised an army to win her back.

Lord Tywin called his banners, but he didn't bestir himself from the West, biding his time, waiting. Sandor was to ride in war whenever Lord Tywin decided to make a move. He was not yet quite twelve for as much as all the others thought him to be fourteen and tall for his age.

One day, the army finally rode from the West all the way to King's Landing, thirsty for glory and spoils of war. They didn't yet know who they were warring against.

Sandor's company was somewhere in the middle, far away from his brother and Ser Amory Lorch who were in front. They found the doors of the capital open to them, and no real resistance. Yet the command came to attack.

The army cut through any man who was somehow armed, soldier or not. Sandor found it so easy to kill his first man, and the one after, and the one after that one, and so many that he lost count. He might have killed a woman too. He didn't think he killed a child then, that was later. Real children probably had a good inborn sense to hide.

It was not that much different than in the training yard, only more bloody.

He prevailed. He had been the strongest one and no one could hurt him.

He liked it.

He loved it.

When all resistance faded, it was different. His brothers in arms started looting the city and raping women.

Sandor didn't give a rat's ass for titles and lands. They didn't help his father. So he couldn't bring himself to care about silver chains and fancy cutlery. Lord Tywin provided well enough for his servants.

And rape was something he could not fully understand at that time. His overgrown body of a boy didn't show any interest in it. He was almost twelve, old enough and strong enough to kill a man with his bare hands.

But he was still just too young to know in his guts what it was to need or desire a woman.

He did note though that the people reviled Rhaegar for what he had done, considering it as great ignominy and offence to both gods and men, but maybe that was what they thought in the times of the Mad King's peace. In war, those same good people, whom Sandor had seen return to their wives and families and live peacefully later on, used the first chance to behave just as Rhaegar did.

It all smelled of another lie of the world, a monumental one. The Hound hated lies just like he hated knights and their sacred vows. They reminded him of all those accidents in his family.

Women screamed while being forcefully held in one place by the soldiers, just like he screamed and screamed as Gregor held him under his arm down in the burning coals.

He would never acquire a taste for rape.

Awkward, he realised he had to do something when the killing was done. He pretended to be a man, not a boy, so he had to do something a man would do, and neither looting nor raping was appealing.

And he needed something to calm down the unknown burning in his body, taut and uselessly alert, still on edge for no reason at all.

Then, as a sort of salvation, he noticed some men he had ridden with in a winesink. The flagons in front of them exhaled a sour odour and the liquid within was red like blood. _Gregor's blood,_ he thought wishfully, knowing that no matter how strong he was, he was still not as strong as his brother. He sat and started drinking. It was the first time he drank more than a cup offered to boys in Casterly Rock, the first time he drank freely.

As he drank, he felt stronger than in the battle, more powerful than Gregor.

He woke the next day in a pond of his own vomit in a ditch between the two rows of houses where the innkeep and his serving girls must have dragged him, sick in body and heart.

As any other, it was a lesson hard learned. The wine quenched the battle fever in his blood, but he had to be sober on the day when he would kill Gregor.

A semblance of order returned to the city. He rejoined the ranks of his company. People flinched from him, and it was not only his face any longer. They had seen him fight. They had seen him drink. Doubtlessly, Lord Tywin would be told of his prowess.

Sandor Clegane laughed, and his laugh was raucous, and it could be heard all the way to the blood-washed walls of the Red Keep.

_They are all afraid of me._

_All, except my brother._

"Brother?" a drunk voice asked, and the Hound was back in the mountains of the Vale, behind the false safety of the Bloody Gate. He shivered like the dog he still was. The lonely battlement in the snowy mountains might keep out the clansmen, but not the cold.

His brother was long dead and Sandor Clegane was looking for Sansa Stark.

"I'm still here," he answered the drunk guard, who was bearded like the image of the Father on his altar on the Quiet Isle.

"Would you keep vigil for us?" the drunk father asked. "As a payment for food, brother. I don't suppose you have any silver."

The Hound said neither yes or no. He had some coin, but he wouldn't give it away easily.

"The new watchers will come to relieve us at dawn," another man said, a brown-haired, fat one, very broad of chest, "and we are so tired."

"I'll do it," the Hound said. "If you give me that food now."

They did.

All six of them soon slept.

The chill was rising and the Hound moved closer to the embers of the dwindling fire, huddled in his roughspun brown cloak.

Thinking on his past unavoidably meant thinking of Sansa.

Sansa was maybe twelve years old when he asked her to sing him a song. She answered with simple, unknowing courtesy that she would sing it for him gladly.

She was then as old or as young as Sandor had been when King's Landing fell.

She was as old because she had seen her father killed, just like he had seen his own father killed, _accidentally._ His accident was called Gregor, and hers Joffrey.

Yet she was as young because although she looked almost a woman, just like he had looked every inch a man at twelve, she couldn't understand, not truly, what song he had in mind when he told her that one day he would have it from her, whether she willed it or not.

Sansa's mother and her septa must have told her what it meant to be wedded and bedded, to lay with someone and have his babies, or whatever the highborn girls were taught. But she could not truly grasp what it meant just like he didn't know desire at twelve.

 _Did you understand it all when the Imp took your innocence?_ _Do you remember me at all?_

Sandor Clegane and the Stranger watched over the six sleeping guards and the snowy gate lost in the mountains. The men in their slumber didn't even know that nobody would hurt them that night, or the Hound would kill them.

They were not aware who he was and his saddlebag was already stuffed with food. He wouldn't have to delay his journey to hunt and he hadn't been carrying any snares.

All he had was his horse, his sword and himself.

The winter night was starry and clear.

_On the morrow, I shall continue climbing._


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of violence/gore in the past.
> 
> Thank you very much to everyone who commented and/or left a kudos on THIS story, written in an emotional condition that some romantic poets of the 19th century would call world-pain or world-weariness.
> 
> Thank you for reading.

"He's my mother's dog, in truth. She has set him to guard me, and so he does." - Joffrey Baratheon about Sandor Clegane, the Hound, ASOIAF

**Three**

A good dog should reap a reward and a rabid one should be put to death in hands of a prudent kennelmaster.

Word spread like deadly plague through the Lannister ranks as soon as the capital fell. Gregor raped and murdered Princess Elia Martell with hands stained by the morsels of the crushed skull of her son Aegon, a babe still abreast, whose head he had dashed against some wall. Elia's little girl, Rhaenys, was put to sword when she was found hiding under the bed.

_A small mercy there._

Rhaenys had been just a notch too little to be raped, even by the likes of the Hound's sweet brother and his pets.

The sword was a clean death.

Yet rumour had it that the number of slashes laid on Rhaenys was much more than necessary. Ser Amory Lorch was told to have done for the little princess, but no one would convince Sandor Clegane that Gregor was not in command that day.

When the Hound was commanded to kill a child, he would not dash their skulls against a wall or cut them into pieces.

Dead was dead.

He would only cut the child in two.

 _And I still remember the butcher's boy,_ he thought. _I have forgotten his name, or I've never known it, but I remember the ginger-haired boy running…_

_Not fast enough..._

Sandor Clegane stopped thinking and looked ahead.

The road from the Bloody Gate descended sharply from the mountains to the valley floor. From there it ran straight and muddy from melting snow to the Gates of the Moon, passing through the narrow part of the Vale, away from the expanse of fertile lands and settlements farther to the east, encircled by the mountain range from all sides.

The Hound thought he would find the road empty. Much to the contrary, it was crowded with petty lords and hedge knights, dragging rusting swords and lances.

He could not cross soon enough. Impatience and anger were growing strong inside him, threatening to boil over.

_What if she flies away? She has done it once, she could do it again._

_But have you flown away in truth, little bird? Or have you been caught and caged once more, to recite the pretty words your septa taught you to someone else?_

The Hound intended to find out. _I'm not the Mad Dog of Saltpans, but I might be a mad dog after all. And she may be in the seven heavens for all I know. Not that I would ever go to such a place if it existed._

_We will be apart in death, as we were in life..._

_If I don't find you first._

He abandoned the road and the travellers on it, not desiring to know who was organising the tourney and why. There was no other explanation as to why so many unemployed, hungry men-at-arms and lordlings would go anywhere in the devastating cold.

The land was unprotected inside the mountain walls of the Vale. The Stranger made an easy way through the empty orchards and fields from which the crops had been meticulously picked and taken in for winter; wheat, corn and barley. A few large pumpkins still lingered, as big as those of Highgarden. _The people in here won't die of hunger. If I come down with her, we will find shelter somewhere._

_Anywhere._

_I will build one for you if I have to._

The Hound's memories returned in force with the bleakness of the dull plains he was crossing.

Elia was not some peasant girl or daughter of a landed knight in westerlands. And Gregor was not stupid, only evil. He wouldn't have done what he did without orders of someone with equal power... of Lord Tywin Lannister... who, to trust the hearsay, would have been content by the death of Rhaegar's children. He had presented them as a gift of fealty to the new king, Robert, covered in crimson Lannister cloaks.

_Red and golden shrouds for the little dragons..._

Sandor was convinced that the manner of the children's deaths as well as Elia's final lot in life was just another of those unfortunate accidents that could not be avoided when Gregor was in charge.

Lord Tywin was not blinded by love for Gregor like their father, not at all. For several days Sandor hoped fervently that he would be asked to put his brother to death as payment for his now obvious and well-known crimes.

Gregor would never walk to the block meekly, and Sandor was one of the few men who _might_ be able to match him in strength, though he was still too young... He would need to select a company to ride against Gregor and his minions and clean the world of them... He hoped that the sheer force of his hatred would provide the bodily force he still lacked.

His hope had been entirely wasted.

Tywin Lannister was no kennelmaster. He was lord. High lords had needs that surpassed all reason. The rabid dog was kept alive and scratched between the ears. He could return to his lands, marry and remarry at will. He could amuse himself with his wives and servants until his lord had need of him, again.

And Lord Tywin finally found the use for the good dog, the one who only did what he was told, no more...

And no less…

The good dog's reward was an appointment to become a _wet nurse_ to the lord's daughter, Cersei, the future Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Very young Sandor drowned his sorrow in Dornish sour.

Sansa was a good girl like Sandor was a good dog. She never forgot her courtesies like Sandor never forgot his orders. She did what she was told and she was rewarded with bruises… And with a good match, to the only man in the Seven Kingdoms uglier than the Hound.

Tyrion Lannister, the Imp, the little twisted monster!

The Hound swallowed hard to choke his rage at the hurting memories, and turned all his attention to the castle he and Stranger were approaching. He could not stand when Sansa was beaten yet he had let them beat her all the same. He told himself he would have killed the Imp in cold blood before the bedding, had he been there when they married her off.

The truth was, he might have just stood and watched.

The Gates of the Moon was a simple, stout keep at the foot of the mountain, now almost overshadowed by the number of tents rising like mushrooms after rain in front of its walls. _It won't be a small tourney,_ Sandor thought and turned his horse away. He had no interest in it. If he still remembered it well, he didn't have to enter the castle to find his way up to the Eyrie.

_But maybe…_

On a second thought, he returned toward the tents, riding Stranger. It was time to part with his horse for the time being. And if he left him with someone, he might be able to find him again.

A particularly vain-looking young knight stood uselessly under the badly-mounted banner of a red castle on some ugly, dirty white field. Sandor didn't give a rat's arse whose sigil it was, though he should have remembered. It was one or another ancient house from the Vale. And if the _ser_ was as bad with the lance as he was with unfurling his standard, he would not last in the tourney for long.

"Good ser," he rasped bowing his head. "I have a horse to trade."

The young man looked the Stranger in the eye. "He'd frighten my wife, I think," he said. "I love another, yet I should not like to scare my spouse. She is gentle and kind."

The Hound immediately thought about the once kind and gentle girl he was looking for and who was not his wife.

_You asked me if it gave me joy to scare people._

_You almost had me there._

_It gave me joy to scare you…_

_How old are you now? Four and ten, if? So very young still..._

Sandor Clegane had seen eight and twenty name days, soon to be nine and twenty.

The young knight spoke again. "It is quite a beast you have here… Why don't you ride it in a tourney yourself? Where are you going anyway? There is nowhere to go from here, except back…"

"The Seven wish me to ascend to the Eyrie, in sign of penitence for my sins," the Hound lied as a true knight would.

The boy believed him though, recognising his robes for what they were.

Robes of the Faith for a man who had none.

"My pardons, brother, you appear too dangerous to be a septon. The Seven are strong in the Vale. My ancestors have not honoured them, but I do. If it is as you say, I solemnly swear that I shall guard your horse for you until you return. I estimate it could take you seven days to climb up and down on foot in this time of the season and the tourney will last for eight…"

"Thank you, good ser," the Hound said with the measure of relief, wishing that the Stranger would not bite the boy's nose off in that time. He would look much less handsome noseless.

The Hound was almost as strong as before the fight with Gregor's men at the inn when he had found out Sansa was married to the Imp and nearly drank himself to a messy death by the sword in response to that joyful news. With some luck, he'd be down the mountain with Sansa in less than seven days, and perhaps before Stranger maimed his new keeper for good.

_If only she would go with me this time._

_If only she were here..._

"The name's Mychel Redfort, brother, and if the gods are good I will name the girl I love the queen of love and beauty before you are back. She won't be able to resist me in my splendid new armour! My wife is at home and with child. She'll never know."

 _The gods are never good_ , Sandor wanted to rage at the cocky youth.

"Suit yourself," the Hound grumbled and limped away, with a sword and a bag of food over his shoulders. The Stranger whinnied behind. _Farewell, boy. I will be back with my queen of love and beauty, or not at all._

Sandor Clegane walked around the castle in strides that would shame a giant until he found the beginning of the dark, dense forest of pine and spruce. _It has to be somewhere here._ _Stairs carved in stone, in the shadowy body of the mountain..._

As he searched for the way up, his mouth twitched from laughing at the young ser's belief in his good looks as a way forward in life. The stupid conviction reminded Sandor further of the rather unforgettable part of his youth spent guarding Cersei, who believed that the way to power lay between her legs.

Twelve years old Sandor became rapidly used to seeing women parading in all states of dress... And undress.

It was not only the queen who chose a different gown and a matching set of jewels every day to suit her daily purpose at court. There were also the ladies scurrying at her heels, eager to win her favour in order to secure one or another appointment for a husband, a son or any other man in their family. A wild bunch of ladies followed the queen wherever she went, clinking in armours of hairnets, laces and gems. There were all sorts of women, of higher or lower birth and stature, of all ages from very young to very old, and of all colours of skin and hair, some beautiful and the others ugly. Young Sandor soon learned to recognise the one thing they all had in common; they were as adorned as they were false.

There were even some hens who tried to seduce the young Hound, thinking he would reveal the queen's secrets to them. As if a mere dog had been told any of them. And even if he were, he'd not tell those women. The good dog knew whose hand was feeding him and it was not theirs. The Lannisters could and would grant him one day the only boon he'd ever wanted for all his services, of the killer and the wet nurse both.

To be called upon to _kill_ his brother...

So the Hound guarded Cersei. He stood aloof as a sworn shield should, slowly learning what a proper place for a dog was for each courtly occasion. But he couldn't close his ears... Nor his eyes.

He had seen bruises King Robert inflicted on his wife from time to time and didn't know what he thought about them as the queen was slowly swelling with child.

By the time he was thirteen, almost fourteen, Sandor Clegane fancied himself knowing everything there was to know about women.

And he had despised them all just as much as he despised the world. Stupid hens, the biggest lot of them, to expect any sort of mercy from the queen! To believe in her smiles and promises! Or to believe Cersei had any real influence over the king's decisions! King Robert hated his wife and Cersei hated everyone except herself, and maybe, later on, her children.

(Young Sandor Clegane had _known_ the manly urges of his own body by the age of fourteen, by the year when a little girl, Sansa, must have been born in Winterfell, far up north. He had felt the ache of wanting in his loins and in his soul, mingled with shame of desiring one or another young and pretty highborn lady who would never see him as anything more than a fearsome guard with a monstrous face.)

 _I have to be stronger,_ he told himself. _I have to ignore them all._

_What did you make of it, little bird, the marriage bed? Who did you allow in it after the Imp? If you had a say about it, that is... Was it any good?_

_Was it like a song…_

_The one you never gave me?_

The Hound was regarded as one of the strongest men and best fighters in the Seven Kingdoms. When he started winning in tourneys and melées, he might have been able to get in his bed almost any woman he wanted, if only his face had been whole. Most women of any birth were stupid enough to sigh and faint in presence of the tourney champions if they were just a bit handsome. From there, the way into their smallclothes was short.

But his face was a shapeless ruin, and his last name caused fear and loathing.

The way Sandor was, ugly and landless, and born a _Clegane_ , his prospects with women were limited. He could marry a fifth daughter of an impoverished house, service the few daring ladies or wenches who approached him out of curiosity if the monster's cock was as big as the rest of him, or use his hard-earned coin to pay a whore of his choosing.

The dog wasn't picky so he took what satisfaction he could, some for free and some for coin, as it came his way.

Yet, sometimes, at endless feasts and boring ceremonies, he would stare at the most beautiful and truly refined among the highborn ladies waiting on Cersei, those he could not possibly hope to have. He sometimes wondered how it would be if one of those women would look at him and see through, all the way to the man behind his scars, and to want him for what he was, not as a means to an end of either killing for them or betraying his masters.

As almost anyone in the court, he became practised in masking his stares, yet he always knew when he indulged in them, and his weakness made him angry.

So he took care of his urges the best he could, and kept on living for killing his brother. But he did not marry and he only took coin, armour and horses as winnings in tournaments, not the sweet-smelling falseness of any lady's favour.

Extremely rarely, on some royal function he would spot a couple who seemed at ease together, not putting up a mummers' show for each other, making conversation or sharing a goblet of wine. When their bodies touched, the lovers would glow faintly, with unmistakable carnal knowledge and simmering desire.

 _This must be what they call love then_ , Sandor Clegane would think, _or as close to it as the world can get._ He would never know it from personal experience just like he would never be Lord of Casterly Rock.

No woman would ever want him for himself.

When Joffrey Baratheon was born, King Robert went hunting. Ser Jaime stayed with Queen Cersei when she was in childbed, with the maids and the maesters, until the child was born. Her sworn shield stood guard in front of the closed door. And Sandor Clegane understood the best kept secret of the lions. Lord Tywin was either unaware of it or he chose to skilfully deceive himself about the kind of love that united his golden children. The Hound was angry with himself for not understanding it sooner, mentally joining the occasions of being sent to the training yard or simply away before the end of his shift, whenever Ser Jaime called on his sister.

 _I am a dog, but I'm not dumb_ , he thought and practised sniffing out lies in the court with the same zeal he applied to training.

From that time on, he kept the twins' secret from everyone, even from those others in Lannister household who must have known or suspected the same. One wrong word could cost him his head and he very much intended to keep it on his shoulders. He was not yet done living. How else was he going to kill his brother?

Years went by, and the queen's dog witnessed Cersei growing into a bitter woman, the queen of harpies, or perhaps of whores. If the Kingslayer believed she loved him, he was sorely mistaken. And If a handsome man like him could not have love, how could the ugly dog hope to have it?

When Cersei finally set her dog to guard her firstborn son, Joffrey, the Hound had at least been freed from the henhouse, and back to the company of men.

 _It can't get worse,_ he had thought back then.

He couldn't be more wrong.

It could always get worse.

Years of guarding Cersei and later on her son had passed before he understood the reason for his appointment as the wet nurse. He took it upon himself when he obeyed his masters' orders to a word, no more, no less. He sealed it every day in the Red Keep by showing he could be as ferocious and as ruthless as Gregor at need, yet keep himself in check even if Cersei or her ladies walked around half-naked. There were no accidents when Sandor was on duty.

Tywin _wanted_ to keep Gregor to do his bidding in _Gregor's_ way, but never risk that the mongrel bites his lordly person or his golden twins. If Sandor killed Gregor _without_ Tywin's order, the Hound would doubtlessly be put down like a rabid dog.

Lannisters had a peculiar way of paying their debts. The Hound immediately lost all respect for Lord Tywin. _What's a dog to do with lions?_

Fortunately, Gregor still spent enough time with the Lannisters as their bannerman, and Sandor _knew_ Gregor better than anyone alive. Sooner or later his temper _was_ going to betray him, and he was going to slight Tywin, somehow. Now, a slight to the family was something Tywin would never forgive as the Reynes of Castamere had learned to their sorrow. And when that happened, Sandor would be there, big enough and strong enough to _kill_ his brother and live on to laugh over his dead body. He just needed to be patient a little bit longer…

Yet now, now… Now he only hoped he would live long enough to climb to the Eyrie and see if Sansa was there. He should very much like to see her again.

Against his will, the would-be knights on the road, and the tents and the banners made him remember the permitted joys of his past life as a dog for hire. Unconsciously, he patted the pommel of his sword. His truest companion… Truest… apart from the Stranger.

_Every choice takes us a little closer to our death, the only thing in life which is the same for all._

In war, at least, you could kill people and take joy in it freely.

During king's peace, you could only kill those people your masters wanted dead and they were too few for the Hound to quench his ever present anger. The rest you could only beat bloody in the training yard, or in tourneys and melees, if you wanted to keep your head on your too-broad shoulders. Most unfortunately, King Robert had given his kingdoms many years of peace.

The only wondrous exception was Balon Greyjoy's pitiful Rebellion, six years after Robert was crowned king. The Hound was allowed to ride in the king's retinue and take part in the storming of Pyke. He was seven and ten. He had never killed so many men, women and children in such a short time before or after, nor felt such profound joy in doing so. The ironborn were _resisting,_ all of them. The Hound's joy doubled and tripled. He had never felt stronger. It was glorious and over far too soon for his liking. He had never felt more alive… _No!_ He knew his own thought for a lie as soon as it formed itself, and he could not stand lies...

_I'll never lie to you, Sansa… I felt more alive in that buggering riot in King's Landing. I cut off a man's arm, I gutted another and I laughed… I sat astride your chestnut courser in front of you and carried you back to your cage._

_Both of your arms were tight around my chest and I fancied myself your dog._

Another lie, just there.

_The dog fancied himself your man._

The future tourney grounds were left purposefully behind by the lonely brother of the Faith, who was in reality one of the most distinguished killers in the Seven Kingdoms, now somewhat older. A mule path finally opened before him when he succeeded in skirting the castle walls fully through the thickness of the wood. The climb appeared broad and modest at first, but the Hound knew that it would get steeper and narrower.

The mountain was not called the Giant's Lance for nothing. One of the highest mountains in the Seven Kingdoms, and the largest one in the Vale of Arryn, it dwarfed the other peaks; a jagged giant among lesser men.

When he stepped on the stony foot of the mountain and finally started his ascent to the Eyrie after long weeks of travel from the Quiet Isle, his feverish thoughts and conflicted musings about the true nature of his errand deluded every effort not to give into them.

_And that without wine to make me fart through my big mouth._

_Sansa, what will you say to me? What did they do to you while I was gone? Will I scare you again? Will I breach your wall of courtesy if I storm it by being hateful, like before? Or have you raised it high as the walls of Winterfell? Have you made it impregnable as the buggering Eyrie is supposed to be?_

_Have you become awful..._

_As the world...?_

_One thing I will see soon enough, and that is just how impregnable this place is, won't I?_

_Sansa!_

_Sansa, Sansa, Sansa…_ He rasped quietly to himself with every step as he began his march upward, of sorts.

He had called her child, girl, almost a woman, a proper lady, even _the Lady Sansa_ when he had to announce flatly her arrival to Joffrey's court.

_I wish I had called you by your name._

_When I still could._

_And if I ever see you again, don't thank me. It only makes me bloody angry when you attempt to do that._

_There is no and there has never been any need to thank me. The dog would have chased after rats anyway. What else is a dog to do?_

_Don't thank me, Sansa._

_Don't ever thank me for being the same as everyone else._


	4. Four

"The boy is a long time dying. I wish he would be quicker about it." Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF

**Four**

Sparks flickered in the sky, so very high up above him.

He wouldn't go farther than the first keep tonight, with its lights like orange eyes staring down the mountain. The first range of stairs, low for a man of his stature, passed through the dark tunnel made by the boughs of the trees.

New snow sloshed under his heavy boots, looted from a long dead, rotting soldier on his way to the Vale. The crows had eaten his eyes and the wolves the sigil on his chest, but the shoes were still better than those the monks had been using on the Quiet Isle. Fortunately, the dead man had large feet. Only the Hound's big toes were somewhat squeezed on the inside. He was able to march without much discomfort through the dark-green wood, from which all the light of the day was running out now; running out fast.

Sandor Clegane was always fond of green and he'd wear it gladly when he didn't need armour. Green was quiet like the wood he was now passing and quiet was good. No constant chattering and false pretenses to make him angry.

Twilight merged the stones and trees and looming mass of the mountain into a single black shadow, in which the stairs leading up the mountain were cut. Slowly, they became steeper and he could not very well see the way forward in the deepening darkness.

Sandor Clegane sat on a large, rounded stone and waited for moonrise. No horse could go up those steps. Only a mule could and the Stranger was nobody's mule. He was nonetheless missing his horse, remembering how he found it.

If she still lived, the mare he took with him when he ran away from home as a boy was now enjoying her old age in the green grass fields near the stone fortress of the Rock. In the past, the queen and the crown prince often visited there.

A year or so after the Greyjoy rebellion, the Hound understood he would need a new horse. Horses grew older faster than men. The mare would not be able to support his growing weight and strength on interminable hard rides between the capital and the West forever. He would never know for sure if it was one of Gregor's stallions who did for his mare on one of those visits.

Be as it may, a year later, the mare foaled. Without Sandor being any wiser for it, occupied as he was serving as the wet nurse of the crown prince, the foal grew into a huge black colt. At the age of three, the animal became a terror of grooms and lesser retainers in the king's stables when they tried to break him to saddle.

 _Too early, boy,_ Sandor thought, remembering young Stranger, _You were no more a horse fit for riding than I was a man-at-arms at the age of ten. Just freakish big._

One summer day, Sandor Clegane _heard_ talk in the yard that the king would make a gift of a wild, ear-biting, bone-breaking young horse to _Lord_ Gregor Clegane, or the animal would be put down if Gregor didn't want him. He ran to the stables with fury and beat bloody the groom who thought of advising the master of horse to ever suggest such a stupid notion to the king. Gregor would choose the most spirited young stallions, let them become ill-tempered, use them, and kill them when he had no more need of them. Just as he did with his men and wives.

The horse nearly bit Sandor's hand off when he first approached him. The Hound laughed at will, mightily pleased with the spine the beast was showing.

About the same time, King Robert gave the Hound a gift; a snarling dog's helm, the work of a master armourer from the capital. His Grace occasionally suffered from attacks of generosity towards his servants, with an added joy that the queen always disapproved. And it must have amused Robert, who used to wear a great antlered-helm, to make his heir's sworn shield look more fearsome than he already was with his terrible burned face.

Sandor Clegane never bothered to find out if Gregor received another gift from the king to make up for the lack of a new stallion his beloved brother could slaughter one day. He wore the helm and trained the horse, happy for the fear on the faces of men he passed riding it, a monster of a man in dark armour on a black steed.

 _This is it,_ he thought, pleased with himself beyond measure, _fear your death when you see it._ There was only one name his new horse could have.

_Stranger._

The name made the horse and his rider even more notorious than before. And it made the lying septons frown with false indignation, to the Hound's growing satisfaction. The Hound found out long ago that the servants of the Seven were no different than knights and lords. While preaching honour and good deeds, they cared only for political gains and gold or, perhaps to a lesser extent or depending on the man in question, to have their fill of food and drink, and empty their cocks in any way it pleased them.

(He would not admit, not ever, not out loud, not even to himself, except in the rare hours of extreme sobriety following drunken hazes that swallowed his scarce time off duty, that the yearning to call his horse by the name of the god of death may have come from the sight of small village septs in the westerlands and crownlands. In them, the face of the Stranger was ofttimes scrawled with charcoal in a few simple, honestly shocking lines that showed him either as a monster, or as a terrifying man with _half_ a face.

Had there ever been one among the seven faces of one god that the young man like Sandor Clegane could embrace as his, it would have been that one.

The Hound already had a name, though he rarely used it, and his new horse needed one so it was as good a notion as any.)

Another year of wet-nursing went by without being allowed to kill Gregor, who surprisingly limited himself to only talk of cruelty and not acts when seated on Lord Tywin's councils with his bannermen. Tywin never revealed what he thought of Gregor's cruellest proposals, if anything at all.

Boredom and hatred of the deceitful world grew heavy on his younger brother, as a piece of armour that had become too tight and needed to be shed for something bigger. Beating bloody any commoners who were unreasonable enough to step in the way of the crown prince, an occasional small tourney or melée here and there, and the everyday morning song of steel in the yard were not enough to keep him going.

He found himself drinking more and more when he wasn't guarding Joffrey. Yet, on duty and in training, his self-mastery and strength never betrayed him. They remained steadfast and secure, stronger than steel in his arms. The Hound had a flaring temper but he never lost it more than he wanted to on any occasion.

One thought sometimes haunted him, that also in _that_ he was Gregor's _brother_ , and not only resembling him slightly in looks and stature, for which men still called him _pup._ But not even Gregor's men dared call him that within his hearing. His masters' permission was not needed to kill Gregor's pets and even his brother would most likely only laugh at their death.

One fine summer day the Hand of the King died in his bed from some illness. Sandor would rather not know if Jon Arryn left this world from natural or _less_ natural causes, faithful to his devise to keep his head on his shoulders until the day he finally _killed_ his brother.

Less than a week after, a curious order came, setting the court to turmoil. The king would travel North, _to get a new Hand_ , they said. The queen tightened her pretty, pouting lips, fortifying Robert's decision to go. The children were to come as well, with a party three hundred men strong; the best that could be found.

The long, interminable ride north was a welcome distraction in the Hound's mounting tedium. The Stranger and his rider finally enjoyed the exercise they badly needed. The Hound's body sang a song of pure joy whenever he galloped swiftly as the god of death himself up the kingsroad, always among the first and foremost of riders in the king's retinue.

The spoiled crown prince stayed in the wheelhouse with his mother and younger siblings most of the time. By the looks of it, he would very soon be knighted; sweet lies dripped from his mouth as honey from a hive. Joff only mounted a horse beside his sworn shield when they visited some castle on their way, to make a good impression on the lord or the lady that held it.

The Hound turned six and twenty on a moonlit night in the woods, just before the king's party arrived to Winterfell. The fresh, clean smell of needles had been deep in his nose and throat, rising sharp and pungent from the low-lying summer snows, just as he was smelling it now on top of the deep and dense white mantle the snow knitted over the woods of the Vale, brought forward by winter.

_Three years have passed and I am still that same man, and a changed one, at the same time._

_I have to keep going._

As if on command, the moon finally rose among the high trees polluting the stony foot of the Giant's Lance; half-full, it illuminated the stairs leading to the Eyrie, and the man with the face of the Stranger. Very few stars peeked through the dark clouds sailing through the moonlight.

 _I'm my own mule now,_ he thought, chewing on some food gained from the six too-friendly guards whose fire he had shared behind the Bloody Gate.

The stairs were dark as pitch. They twisted and turned as he climbed from one to another, following the carpet of snow and fallen needles through the tunnel built by the trees, careful not to stand in the line of faint moonlight coming through the canopies with his great body.

He carried no torch. Surely, he was cold, but walking helped and the light of the torch would have only blinded him. Besides, while he could light a torch and snuff it, and he did so many times in his life, he still didn't cherish holding fire in his arms.

The moon and the stars were more than enough for a man who had no light.

Orange eyes, orange eyes above him, so far above that it seemed his tiring leg would never ever reach them. He ignored the pain and climbed up two more stairs. And two more.

He walked and twisted and turned. The keep was farther than it had looked from the foot of the mountain. One more stair. He nearly slipped on a crust of ice and stumbled down, thrown off balance.

 _One more step._..

He fell into the rhythm of watching his boots, bending only so slightly forward as he advanced on his way up, not to stagger again.

In his mind's eye, he rode into Winterfell again, right after the king and Ser Jaime. Joffrey was riding beside him, and the Imp behind. Inside, he lifted the visor on his helm and showed his terrible burned face. The only reaction was from the dour long-faced lord studying the king and his retinue with cold, grey eyes, counting the enemies in his castle, the Hound supposed. The knowledge was widespread: Lord Stark was no friend to the Lannisters.

The courtiers whispered he had disapproved publicly of the killing of Rhaegar's children and retired back north to his vast domain, determined never to set foot south again. The Hound didn't put much credit in gossip, though he heard it all. If those rumours held any truth, Stark might not have been a very bad man. Yet he rode with Robert in the same company as Gregor when the walls of Pyke were stormed. The Hound hardened his heart and told himself that Stark surely had somewhere a bannerman just like Gregor, to do his lord's bidding in Gregor's way. The good dog remained on guard, in case his royal snotty charge would come to trouble in case Stark was not truly beyond harming the children of his enemies, despite piously bleating against their slaughter where people could hear him.

Stark's wife and a company of snotty children of his own had also waited in the yard to welcome the king. The family was mostly red-haired, in contrast with the greyness of the lord and his castle. Only one child, small and rat-like, looked sharp and grey like the father. The Hound approved. Just like green, grey was good. His own soot-dark armour was a testimony to it.

The Hound had further thought nothing of any of the Stark children in person. (Years later he remembered in a completely different light the bunch of auburn-coloured curls dancing against the dullness of the castle walls in the northern wind.) Back then he only noted with mild amusement how that auburn hue had been a different red colour than the festive Lannister one; more strident, wild and free.

His thoughts, as always of late, returned to Sansa, with grievance and with hope of seeing her again.

_I first saw you and I thought nothing of you. What does that make me? A heartless bastard or an average man who lays with whores and not with children?_

Winterfell was as large as Casterly Rock, and yet so very different. Less dungeon-like. Much, much colder in the yard, and yet much, much warmer on the inside. There were freakish _smoking_ pools here and there on the grounds, the likes of which he had never seen in Westeros despite travelling far and wide with the king. And the walls of his room near Joff's were so warm that he had to sleep tunicless, and that without even starting a fire. The wine was piss poor, but the food was decent, served in generous quantity for a giant like himself.

The odd differences did not end with the accommodations and the weather. Little lordlings of the castle did not have the escort of men-at-arms as Joff did, no, their wet nurses were different. The direwolf was not only a dead sigil on the Stark banner; Stark's children had _wolves_ for pets.

Wolves were very much like the wild dogs, his brothers…

The red-haired lordlings crossed wooden swords in the yard with little princes and Sandor was forced to observe them as a part of his duties, bored to death as he usually was in the last years. He was now strong enough to kill his brother yet the opportunity always eluded him. There hadn't been proper war or trouble in the capital for years. The Hound purposefully sought the strongest opponents in the yard and yet they could never satisfy his desire for victory. None of them was Gregor. He never quite understood why some other men-at-arms looked for weaker sparring partners to be sure that others saw them as strong. Much weaker men were gnats, not worthy of the Hound arming himself to face them, unless commanded to do so by his masters.

He needed to be the last man standing, the best man, for only then he'd be stronger than his brother. Beating the weak served no purpose of his; pretty knights were welcome to it.

Then, the boy fell. _Or rather, was pushed._ One of those auburn-haired wolflings who ran around so bravely and wanted to be a knight in the conversation of children that the Hound had overheard… Just as he himself once wanted before he was burned and Gregor knighted. The Hound would bet on his life that whoever helped the boy down the keep's rough masonry walls was a _ser_ …

Why, the little wolf's fall must have been as natural as Jon Arryn's death with so many lions in their castle, despite some lions being masked as stags. _The wolf and the lion will go at each other's throat._ The lord looked suspicious of everyone and everything, as the Hound would be in his place, and the lady mother closed herself with the dying boy.

Sandor Clegane fortified his resolve and closed himself to the pain of others. Why should he feel for them? No one had ever felt for his pain. He kept his sword close and looked after his charge, waiting as always for the day when he would finally be called upon to _kill_ his brother.

But the dying boy's wolf just had to keep _howling,_ drawing attention to itself, while his young master lay on deathbed in a lonely tower. The Hound found he could not abide the sound. It meant that the boy still lived and suffered, and to know he was suffering took the Hound back in time when his face was full of ointments and bandages, and he had been dying, dying, dying, in excruciating pain.

The howling of the wolf was gut-wrenching. It reminded the Hound that he still had a heart. He could not want a boy to be dying in pain, any boy… He could not.. Rather a battle wound, a sword wound, a clean wound… The wolf kept howling, driving him mad. On an impulse, the Hound offered Joff to silence the animal, wishing for the boy to be quicker about his dying. _Mercy, it would be mercy._

He hadn't quite finished speaking about silencing the wolf before he regretted it. _I have lived.. Where they all thought I would die and maybe it would have been better if I did._

 _No it wouldn't,_ he scorned himself, reminding himself he was only ugly. He was still able of body and at the age of six and twenty bloody able to _kill_ his brother. _Who is to say what is to become of the boy if the Stranger doesn't take him?_

Both his weakness and his regret were soon forgotten by the arrival of the twisted Lannister gargoyle and his barbed tongue. "Spirits of the air!" Sandor Clegane mocked the dwarf, feigning not to see him when he spoke, to Joff's great amusement. The Imp gave as good as he got, sparing no offence for the Hound, all the while acting the righteous bastard with his nephew where he was no _better_ than him. Maybe he was worse.

The Imp married a whore and when he was fed up with her, he gave her to the Lannister guards before having her for the last time himself. Truth be told, it was unnecessary to marry a whore to fuck her, much less to humiliate her as if she had done something wrong by being what she was. Gregor himself could take lessons in amusement from the little man! When the Hound heard about the occurrence from fellow guards on one of the interminable visits between the capital and the Rock, Sandor Clegane seriously pondered killing the dwarf. He was so very small and Lord Tywin seemed to be overlooking his existence anyway.

However, abomination or not in looks and in deed, the dwarf was still a Lannister, and Gregor was Lannister's bannerman. The Hound pitied the whore and did nothing. Not that there was much he could do. By the time he heard about the happy occasion she had already been taken to Lannisport where she further worked her profession. Or perhaps she took a ship and left Westeros, or maybe she just died, no one knew or cared. The Hound simmered with useless anger and Sandor Clegane remained safely hidden behind the Hound's mask.

The wolfling boy did not heed Sandor's wishes. He was not quick to die. He didn't die at all, and the wolf remained howling. His vivid yellow eyes haunted Sandor Clegane for days after, on the kingsroad, returning south.

Now, the Hound thought he heard another _wolf_ howling from afar, somewhere behind and below, not yet quite at the Gates of the Moon, with the same voice of the yellow-eyed wolf of Winterfell, but with much greater strength… _They would have grown by now… the direwolves…_

_I am not looking for a wolf. I am looking for a lady._

_I am looking for you, Sansa._

Sandor Clegane remembered the rest of the ride south from Winterfell to King's Landing and as he did that, all efforts to maintain the balance were lost. He staggered on the next slippery stair and fell backward into the darkness, rolling some twenty or thirty steps back on the way he came from. When he stopped moving, his bad leg hurt like seven hells. Slowly, he stretched all his limbs and found he had use of them. He would have thanked the gods for it if he believed in them, but since he didn't, he saved his thanks for himself.

_I'll not fall again._

He scrambled back up on his feet, and struggled to keep his heart and soul in check as he continued to remember.

Cersei ordered Joff to leave a good impression on his betrothed and it was hard to do that from the wheelhouse. As a result, the boy rode next to Sandor Clegane more often than not, trying to please his mother. The days of joyful free riding on the kingsroad were over. The Hound had to keep pace with his charge and a mask of impassiveness on his face.

It turned out that Joff's betrothed, Stark's elder daughter, did not need to be impressed. It was only for the good, Sandor supposed, as the golden brat he was guarding did a piss poor job in wooing her. Joff found courting boring; he put more of his heart into torturing Tommen's cats than in heeding his mother's counsels. Yet from the beginning of the ride the Stark girl seemed wet with love for the boy. Not that she knew what wet meant, being a child. She must have loved so well some image she made of him in her head because he was a prince and yellow of hair. The Hound vaguely remembered that handsome princes in stories and songs of chivalry often had golden hair.

The girl would steal sweet and shy glances at her prince every moment she had a chance. Unwillingly, her looks frequently ended upon the Hound, who simply found himself next to him as he well should. And every time her eyes landed on Sandor Clegane, she would _avert_ them, as if he had greyscale and not merely a damn ugly face. And every time she shunned him, the Hound felt stung by it and his anger was growing...

What did it matter if a stupid girl could not look at him? Wasn't that what he always wanted? To be feared?

Yet no one had ever averted the gaze from him so _many_ times a day, nor with such high airs, mingled with true innocence and fear. The ladies in court would do it a few times and then looked at something else, more interesting. The girl feared him, and was repulsed by him, and he who basked in other people's fear, he… he was not pleased about it, and that new mood of his made him terribly angry with himself, for showing _weakness_ again. He wished she looked somewhere else and let him be.

(Yet every morning he combed his lank black hair over his scars more assiduously than ever before, in vain attempt to hide himself or to spare her the look, he never knew the truth. His scars could not be hidden, and it was most rare for the Hound not to know what the truth was.)

Near the ruby ford, Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Renly Baratheon and Ser Ilyn Payne rode forward, sent by the council as the guard of honour to welcome the king. Robert was hunting when they arrived. It was one of the longer lasting halts on their journey south.

Sandor Clegane was happy to leave Joff's company for a little while. As if they had a will of their own, the Hound's long legs took him toward a tender, soft-furred wolf Joff's betrothed walked through the camp, calling her Lady. Lady was the best behaved and kindest dog Sandor had ever seen, and that without being a dog at all. He wondered if her child mistress was like that as well and hoped that she wasn't. Kindness had no place at court. Insipidness she so clearly possessed would serve her better.

The girl didn't even see him approach, staring with admiration at the old Selmy's shiny white armour and snow white cloak of the kingsguard, and at Renly's pretty face. But the stars in her eyes died when she gazed at Payne's _pockmarked_ face and the greatsword with stained hilt over his back, the testimony to his profession of the king's headsman.

Staggering backward, the girl stumbled into his arms. He grasped her by the shoulders. She was shaking. _The ladies are always panicking_ , he remembered with contempt and grinned mockingly when she turned her head to see who it was, forgetting how much uglier it made him.

And for the first time he noticed, from nearby, how tall she was, almost as much as Joffrey who was tall for a boy and was going to grow taller still, as his father. The Hound avoided thinking about Joff's father. It would not do to remember who it was and speak of it by mistake in some tavern.

The Hound surprised himself by asking the Stark girl if he frightened her so much and wondered to himself if he had _stalked_ her on purpose to do just that.

She had no answer for him, no pretty words. She just wrenched herself away. Her wolf stepped between them and rumbled. The Hound laughed profusely, light of heart before that little display of spine of them both. His laughter must have confused or offended the girl because she went to her knees and wrapped her arms around her pet.

In camp there were always people watching. Voices started questioning the presence of the wolf and Sandor Clegane thought he could see the very beginning of _tears_ in Sansa's bright blue eyes.

Suddenly, he needed to say something and he heard himself rasping to the curious crowd that the Starks had direwolves for wet nurses… _When have I ever spoken in favour of anyone?_

The answer was never.

Cersei urged her son to go to the girl, and Joffrey immediately chased his dog away _for scaring his lady._ The well-trained dog in the manners of the court bowed deeply and obeyed quietly, never looking back to see how the scene unfolded.

_Why didn't you look at Joff at once with your blue eyes and not only with the eyes of your hopes and dreams? You would have seen him for what he was just as you have seen through me. Not that I had known it back then. For a long while I despised you, determined to think of you as shallow and stupid as any other lady in the court._

_Then again, Sansa, you could have looked all you wanted. More like than not, it wouldn't have made what came after any different nor any better. They would still kill your father when he found out the truth and kept you as a hostage before you could fly away… And I would still be the guard dog, escorting you to your cage at my master's bidding._

_Not any longer._

_I have no master now, and I would be yours if you would have me._

The shadow of the wood was now pierced by orange lights, which became larger than the crescent moon in the sky. True to his resolve, the Hound didn't fall and he had come to the end of that night's journey.

Yellow and orange fires burned on the formidable wall of stones, with huge studs set on its top, and defended by two fat round tours. The massive ironbound gate barred the way forward.

"Is Lord Protector sending a septon to retrieve the boy?" asked a motherly sounding manly voice from behind. "Didn't someone say that the bastard girl got him down the mountain before they staged a tourney in his honour?

 _Which boy? Which bastard girl?_ the Hound wondered. Boys often believed there was good in the world. Sandor Clegane didn't. He didn't know what bastard girls believed in.

"I come in the name of the Seven," he limited himself to saying. _It worked on the Bloody Gate so why not here?_ "I lived in solitude and one night I had a dream where the Seven sent me to the Eyrie to do their bidding."

Pious lies opened many doors which were previously closed. The gate swung open. Behind, there was a man who spoke gently as the Mother above, with jowls for cheeks and soft skin on his chin.

"Enter, brother," the motherly man said, baring his chest in a grand gesture. A large healing wound blossomed there, a knife wound, cut out in the shape of the seven-pointed star. "May the Crone hold her lamp high for you, on your way."

They were indeed every inch as mad about the Faith in the Vale as the Elder Brother said they might be.

The Hound passed smoothly through one more set of gates, accomplished.

_I have made it, Sansa. Can you tell? Are you cold up there with no smoking pools to be piped into the walls, to warm the ivory towers of the falcon's nest? Or are you warm in someone's bed, with your pretty head resting on his chest…?_

The last thought should have made him angry, but it didn't. He was too tired to care, and he slept well and sound. And in his dreams the chest of the man where Sansa's head was resting swiftly became his own.

The Hound arrived safely at the first of the three keeps guarding the ascent to the Eyrie.

His heart was made of it and the keep was named for it.

_Stone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left a comment or a kudos on this story. Much appreciated and as always, carefully considered. As Sansa might, I apologise for not answering. This is a project of a very personal nature, therefore, comments are not answered.


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sandor's memories become more vivid here and Sansa has the age stated in the books. So I put up the warning underage despite that it's all in Sandor's head. I also listed all past relationships of the characters he sometimes remembers.

"Get her a dog, she'll be happier for it." Robert Baratheon, ASOIAF

**Five**

The Giant's Lance rose white and blue in sunlight.

The Hound stretched, enjoying the flexing of his limbs and the pleasant cracking of joints. He was in a good shape. Or as good as he could be in. Butchers did not outlive the butchered for long; he had accepted that possibility long ago. And whenever he fought, he knew he mighit die. The knowledge never bothered him; death would come for him one day, and that was all.

Yet they were all gone now, killers as gifted as he was in the West, Gregor, Tywin, Stafford, Kevan… Even Joffrey who believed he could put any man to death and never be touched by it.

The Stranger took them all.

_Only I am still here, looking for you, Sansa._

The thought gave him strength.

He hadn't dreamed that night.

Dreamless sleep made his mind light as his unfatigued body. He spread his arms to their full span as a healthy animal; happy to be alive and desiring nothing more. For half an hour, he meticulously honed his sword, readying himself to depart.

 _The Eyrie is still far away and this is the biggest gamble of my life,_ he thought.

Sandor Clegane couldn't see the second of the three fortresses guarding the way up with so much light in his eyes. He wondered if he would reach it before the sunset of another short winter day. Not having more time to lose he abandoned Stone. He blew into his hands to imbibe them with warmth from his giant lungs and went forth, always climbing, always further up. Up and up and up some more he went… Snowflakes rained softly on his trail, erasing his footsteps. Soon, no one would know he had passed.

 _It's not that I have no more time left to lose,_ he straightened his thoughts into pure, undiluted truth with great effort of will.

_I have nothing left to lose._

_And everything to gain._

_I should like to see you again either way._

Once, long ago, ages of the world ago, it seemed, he believed he had something to lose; a place behind his masters' back, scraps from his masters' table, a kennel to fall asleep in, and most of all the fair chance to _kill_ his brother.

The place he had crafted for himself in life came at a price, as everyone's.

So when Joff told Cersei that a butcher's boy hit him with a club, whinnying and cradling his wolf-beaten arm, the Hound was sent to _see_ to him. He obediently led search parties along the Trident for three days. Meanwhile, the royal party made themselves the uninvited guests of Lord Darry in his castle.

On the fourth day, the Hound's sharp grey eyes spotted a thick mop of ugly red hair hiding in the bush. The boy's face was coarse, freckled, and when he saw the riders, he ran.

The boy had been dead since he had the misfortune to meet Joffrey first hand. The Hound didn't let him suffer in fear of his imminent fate for long. He rode him down and cut him almost in half from shoulder to waist, with one terrible blow struck from above. He did it and he laughed at how easy it had been, happy that his search had ended and bitter at the same time.

 _A butcher doing for the butcher's boy…_ The gods, if they existed, created the weak to be the prey of the strong. He couldn't help remembering himself, a six year old, burning to death which never came. Sandor Clegane found it easier to believe that the gods did not exist.

On an impulse, he wrapped the body in his cloak and brought it back to Darry instead of leaving it for the wolves and the wild dogs. The Hound and his riders pounded through the castle after their hunt, and Sandor Clegane suddenly found himself facing Lord Stark.

First he rasped at him how there was no sign of his daughter. But the Hand did not care to be reassured by a mongrel; he thought him a monster as everyone else, staring at the bloody cloak over Stranger's back, judging him...

The Hound obliged, answering the unspoken demand to let his betters take a look, faithful to his role. He shoved the burden off his mount, letting the boy's body fall with a thud in front of the grey lord.

Stark seemed… relieved before the look of contempt returned to his face. _What did you expect to see? Give him back to his father or leave him for the crows for all I care,_ the Hound thought, angry in return, before proclaiming with scorn the truth of the matter as he saw it; the boy had run, but not very fast.

He laughed again, ignoring the shocked expression on Lord Stark's face which typically came his way.

 _This is what I do and this is what I am,_ he thought, defiant. _There's no pretty way to kill a child. Best do it fast. A clean death._

(It was only much later, when he turned craven and abandoned his masters, that he sometimes wished the butcher's boy had remained hidden or that he had run faster.)

That evening the Hound returned to Joff's side. Cersei had retired early for the night, always unhappy with her small victories. They were never enough to quench her growing thirst for power. The prince, on the contrary, appeared accomplished.

"You know, dog, my betrothed is as stupid as she's pretty, just as Mother says," he said. "I made her drink wine in a small holdfast, and I would have made her naked on the Trident if her ugly sister and that boy did not attack us. And she couldn't even remember how I fought bravely to protect her, or she would have told it true in front of my father."

Joffrey continued prattling, filling the air with gallant lies about heroically fighting off a girl of nine and a boy who had never held a sword in hand except the wooden one until the day he died. Only one truth soon became apparent to the Hound from so much talking.

The rat-like sister of Joffrey's betrothed had more guts than the crown prince and she had somehow defeated him. Sandor Clegane hated liars and he hated gutless frauds even more. And Joffrey, his charge, was evolving faultlessly from the former to the latter, without any need for maester lessons in that regard. Maybe they would give him a special ribbon for it one day, or the High Septon would anoint him with nine instead of seven oils.

The realisation made the Hound more content than usual for being a dog.

For about the same time that Cersei had sent Sandor to _see_ to the butcher's boy, she had commanded her sweet brother Jaime to _find_ the little Stark girl. Cersei would never trust her dog enough to charge him with that little task, as she had trusted her brother.

And if perchance she did, the Hound would have perhaps found the girl before the Stark men did. Her little body would be wrapped in his bloody cloak, and King Robert might just as well present Stark with the Hound's ugly head as a recompense. Why not put all the blame on the dog for misunderstanding his sweet wife's command? Sandor doubted very much that Robert would punish Cersei for the death of Stark's daughter. Had the king ever had the guts to stand up to Cersei and her father, he could have simply killed her. Yet the brave King Robert, who rebelled against the Targaryens and won, was craven in his marriage - he only ever beat his lady wife.

"Those _wolves_ have to be killed," the boy, Joffrey, continued his rant in a pragmatic tone of a would-be man grown. "Even the Hand understood that. He killed the one he still had himself. They couldn't find the other one though, that beast that nearly _slaughtered_ me..."

The Hound could suddenly understand Stark for doing his killing himself. _A clean death. Maybe the dour lord has some guts after all. Was he afraid to see another wolf's corpse when we met?_

"And then Father told his Hand to get his stupid daughter a dog, for her own safety. She'll be happier for it, he said."

"His Grace is right," the Hound rasped back in a flat voice, hoping he was saying what the boy wanted to hear. "If she had a dog, he would keep her safe."

Fortunately, the prince had nothing more to say. He went pestering Tommen and Myrcella and the conversation was soon forgotten.

On the rest of the return journey south, the burned dog did not have to comb his hair over his scars. Joffrey's betrothed spent her time crying for her sweet wolf in one of the wheelhouses. She didn't look at her prince anymore, nor turned her eyes away from his sworn shield. Sandor was oddly pleased she had seen Joffrey for what he was, so maybe she wasn't as stupid as the little shit believed.

 _Get her a dog,_ the king's words occasionally rang within his ugly head. _What's a dog to do with wolves? Lions fed me and took me in…_ That was the truth he needed to remember.

_Not any more._

Climbing proved easier in daytime. The trees were sparser higher up the mountain and the light lingered longer on the desolation of snow and stone. Gusts of wind were stronger though; he staggered many times. Yet he always managed to straighten himself, grateful for his massive size. He would not be blown off his path so easily; the wind had to try better than that to defeat him.

More snow fell softly, blanketing the path above him, white and tender as the fur of the well-behaved she-wolf who died and who had never bitten anyone, just like her mistress. _That is what you get for being a lady._

 _Or have you started to bite, Sansa? Have you grown teeth and claws while I was away?_ He had to see her again. Innocent or spoiled, maiden or a woman wed, bird or wolf. He just had to see her again. There was nothing else he wanted to do in his life.

Some weeks or months after the royal party returned to the capital, King Robert wanted to honour his Hand, perchance to make his old friend forget the ugliness that had come between them on the Trident.

The preparations for the great tourney of the Hand began and the Hound's mind was set on only one piece of news. _Gregor_ entered the lists to ride in that tourney and the Stranger willing, the time to kill him had finally arrived. The Hound trained himself in arms at every moment when he didn't have to guard Joffrey.

When the first day of jousting came. Sandor rode as savagely as his brother, unhorsing all his opponents in a ferocious style. He was in shape to kill Gregor and he knew it.

Only one thing annoyed him that day. Gregor _killed_ an insignificant newly-made knight from the Vale in one of his first passes, lance hitting the weak part in a badly fitted gorget with too great a precision… Gregor's lance always went where Gregor wanted it to go.

And Ser Hugh of the Vale used to squire for late Jon Arryn…

Former Hand of the King, the victim of a sudden death from _natural_ causes…

If Gregor killed him on Lord Tywin's orders, just like he did for Rhaegar's boy and wife, then the good dog would not be allowed to kill his brother. Again.

Yet the Hound could tell that the foul mood was on Gregor by the way he rode. If _Ser_ Gregor murdered a nobleman or raped a noblewoman where everyone could see, Robert would not be merciful. The king may have been ten times a coward in his marriage bed, but he was that many times more serious in maintaining his peace. Heinous crime was not to be tolerated and Lord Tywin was not there.

The Hound convinced himself his hour would surely come on the morrow, it had to come! If Gregor lost a tilt, he would lose his temper and then…

A lady wept loudly near the place where the royal family was seated, temporarily drawing his attention away from death, real or expected. Crying could very well mean a threat. Though the Hound was off duty for the joust, instinct forced him to search immediately for the source of trouble.

His worry was useless. It was just some girl who fainted from seeing blood. A septa was taking her away. An unexpected scene nailed his eyes to the place the two women had left. Sansa Stark, Joffrey's betrothed, sat alone, gazing at the young dead knight with grim, cold fascination, hands demurely folded in her lap.

_Best be used to this, girl. You will see more of it here._

Sansa's measured poise never wavered.

 _She truly is a high lord's get,_ the Hound thought, impressed against his will, seeing the long, composed look on her heart-shaped face, serene in the face of death. _Or she is made of sterner stuff than her weeping friend…_

Curious and moved at his core in which he unwillingly harboured a special companionship with the Stranger and his only gift, Sandor Clegane found Sansa Stark truly beautiful, for the first time.

The notion came on him so strong that it was almost _painful_ , just as the memory of Gregor holding him down into the burning brazier had always been.

He hadn't seen her since he had scared her on the Trident. Ever since the arrival of the royal party to the capital, the Hand ate wisely with his daughters in his solar, not allowing them to the king's table. He wondered if she was still crying for her wolf at night.

She wore a green dress. The auburn shine of her wavy hair stood out against it and everyone was smiling at her. Sandor Clegane found himself grinning too, against his will.

Then Gregor roared in triumph, riding hard down the lists. Blood seeped into Ser Hugh's sky-coloured cloak, turning all the blue moons on it red, one by one. Sandor's hatred and anger were back tenfold, shadowing all other considerations apart from the well-trained instinct to tread after Joffrey.

His charge's safety was the only guarantee of the dog's place in a world which would have stoned the mongrel to death long ago, only for the way he looked and for what his brother had done.

He would have gone searching for a woman that night, after all the jousts. The city brimmed with visitors. Maybe even he could find some lesser lady who would overlook his face for a fast, pleasurable tumble in the dark. It was worth an honest try. And if not, there was always the Street of Silk.

Sandor discovered as a younger man that a pretty face was not necessarily required to pleasure a woman in bed, or out of it; the dog was never picky about the circumstances. At first he always attempted to be done fast in such couplings as he sometimes entertained. He had no wife, and the women he was with, for coin or not, did not want to look at his face longer than necessary. The truth be told, he didn't want to look at them either. And the whores among them were expected to receive more men in the same night, just as he was expected to knock down more opponents in training every morning. It was only fair not to take more of their time than what he paid for.

He had heard talk in taverns, since he was a boy man-at-arms of twelve acting as a man grown, how some women begged for it or squealed shamelessly with satisfaction when they were being taken. He thought it a lie. Experience soon told him that those indulging in such man chatter were infallibly gnats in the training yard. Later, when drunk, they would invent the stories about their military prowess with equal ease.

Until one day something truly _unexpected did_ happen on one of his early visits to the Street of Silk. He was not yet done when the woman he was with moved very _differently,_ with more… abandon. It set him in a mood to _change_ the angle from the usual one, wondering what she would do. His attempt was met by her body adjusting to his in the most pleasing way. A small sigh escaped her mouth, sounding not at all as the whores always moaned… Between observant and more aroused by it, he tried out as many different strokes as he dared and could think of. In the end, the woman was a shuddering mess in his arms, and the Hound felt a surge of pride as great as on that sweet day in training when he had first bested Ser Jaime Lannister in a sword fight and shoved him face down into dirt.

 _It is true then,_ Sandor discovered. The women could have their pleasure just as men.

The simple realisation did not make him change his habits, nor look for a wife. He would never love. He would never be weak like his father became for loving Gregor. Women were a part of the world who still saw _him_ as a monster, while it knighted and my-lorded his brother. Sandor's prowess with the sword he had in his breeches would never change any of that. Only cold steel might, one day.

Yet later, whenever he recognised those same signs in a woman, and it was not often, he would indulge in it and take it as far as he could or knew how. _No harm in taking a little joy in life._ They would always go separate ways in the morning. He never tried talking to them afterwards. One wench from the alehouse wanted to say something to him, but he had just made a flat face, and left.

That night, after the Hand's tourney, duty called the Hound to the feast. All his time off was spent by the whole day of jousting. So to the feast he went, exchanging his black soot armour for a red tunic with a leather dog's head sewn on his chest, obliged as anyone else in court to adjust his appearance to the occasion. Not that the change of clothes would make him any more presentable.

To his surprise, Stark allowed his elder daughter to attend the revelry with her septa, and Cersei must have threatened Joffrey in some language he understood to keep her happy and occupied. The little shit sweet-talked Sansa as he had never done before. If the feast was not already so noisy with singers and the Moon Boy and his japes, he might have even started singing for her. Sandor was… disappointed.

She was basking in the false company of her prince, forgetting her tears and the death of her wolf. _Joff can fuck her if he knows how and she won't say no,_ the Hound thought bitterly, downing more and more wine.

He realised he had thought her… different, this girl who had embraced her little pet on the Trident and let the furry Lady fearlessly growl at him.

But her sincere smiles had returned to Joffrey in his pretty blue doublet and told a different story. The girl must have been more empty-headed than even the most stupid ladies in the court. More like than not even the witless Lollys Stockworth would understand what Joffrey was, when faced with such flagrant example of the prince's cruelty as Sansa had witnessed on the Trident.

 _And she is pretty..._ The Hound drank some more, not caring.

The more he drank, the more he stared at her. _No harm in looking,_ he thought. No other guest on the feast would pay any attention to a sworn shield standing in the shadows. In the torchlight, Sansa was a vision of finery. The Hound was by no means an expert in ladies' fashion, but the details of her gown and hair from close by looked more meticulous than on any ladies he had seen waiting on Cersei in his long years at court, and he had forcefully seen quite a few. _An ornamented, fancy armour..._

Whenever Joff served her a choice morsel of a dish, she beamed, bashfully, truthfully, with happiness illuminating her features.

 _She believes in her illusion,_ he realised, _she thinks it true._ He could not hear all the courtesies she was wasting on Joffrey, but he was hearing very well the sweet timbre of her voice, chirping as a bird's, trilling, twittering to the arrival of a new day in the branches of a tree... He could see the movement of her throat and chest, fluttering.

The empty phrases she was saying reminded him of those pretty birds people brought from the Summer Isles to the capital. They were kept in cages and trained to repeat every word their owner said. Most men were eager to always hear only the echo of their voice, and never the truth. And the birds obliged… They were very valuable, just like the Hand's daughter, a noble maiden from a great house.

Robert didn't save on wine for his feast. The Hound drank some more of it, dark red as he liked it, while Joff was making his betrothed drunk on iced summer wine. The girl's septa succumbed first. Head falling on the table, she began snoring. The Hound guffawed in the shadows and put away the last goblet of his wine still full. He began to feel the tingling in his body and he could not afford to wake in a ditch for the second day of the Hand's tourney.

He needed to sober up in order to kill his brother.

The girl didn't even notice the passing out of her septa. She only had eyes for her golden prince, so eager to love a lie.

By that time Sandor was not drunk only on wine, but on her beauty and on her voice. He felt… _giddy…_ as never before. His thoughts wandered unbidden into imagining her crying out from joy as he claimed her, staring at his face with open eyes all the while. Her figure filled in his mind's eye, her hips, her breasts...

_That would be a song worth hearing, little bird…_

He was too drunk to feel the shame and anger over his weakness. Sober, he would be strong again. He would not desire any noblewoman who turned her eyes away from his face, yet at that moment, staring at Sansa, he just kept imagining the impossible.

Joffrey called his dog to see that nothing befell his betrothed on her way back to the castle. The Hound was immediately alert, quickly stepping out of the shadows to do his duty of a wet nurse. The girl looked at him quaintly, as if she could see what was on his mind from his drunken gaze. Her prince left her without another word. _At least he won't have a chance to make you naked._ The notion that Joffrey could succeed in that sickened him profoundly. _Too much wine,_ he thought.

Sandor looked back at Sansa with sobering eyes, saw her small frame of a child, saw the unease on her face, saw the spine, stiffening.

_Serves me right. She is not what I imagined. And she never will be._

He immediately became consumed with the need to _tell_ her what Joffrey was, in case she _truly_ didn't know. He snarled at her how there was no chance the prince would take her back himself. She was petrified and didn't move.

And then he softened, pulling her onto her feet as he would help a fellow guard who had fallen during sparring, wishing for her not to be afraid of him as everyone else was, too inebriated to question why that was important to him. He even tried to comfort her by explaining he was drunk as a dog and needed to sleep as much as she did.

Predictably, the attempt didn't work as well as Joffrey's sweet talking. She was still stiff and almost trembling, but at least she followed him. From the riverside where the feast was held, they had to pass through the bloody tourney grounds in order to find a cart to take them back to the city. It was walk or carry her. He suspected she would hate the later.

The Hound snatched a torch to light the way. He didn't want either of them to break a neck toppling over a splintered lance or a broken shield. Sansa trailed behind, silent as a ghost, and he could almost _taste_ her fear.

The Hound _seethed_.

 _Can't you tell?_ he thought, unhinged by her. _I won't bite you._

And then she had the bad sense to compliment him for riding _gallantly_ and call him _Ser Sandor._ He raged back asking if she found Gregor _gallant_ as well.

Her pretty face _frowned_ in that calm expression he had seen in the tourney, _pondering_ her answer, _considering_ his words. She managed a simple courtesy. No one could withstand Gregor. And it was true enough _._

Yet he couldn't quell his rage so easily. He ended up telling her what _she_ was, a pretty bird reciting empty words she had been taught…

She rebelled, said he was unkind and frightening her, demanded they should go. The faint trace of unkempt anger where only fear had been until that moment only made her more lovely in his eyes.

The illicit imaginings returned with force in that instant, but he chased them away with ease, obsessed with yet another, much stronger need...

More than he ever needed wine or a woman, he was compelled to say to her, in case she _truly_ didn't know, how it was no coincidence that Gregor killed Ser Hugh of the Vale, ignoring the danger this could mean for himself and his household if she repeated his words to her father. Robert _would_ kill Cersei for high treason.

Finally he remembered with anger every single time she averted her eyes from him on the kingsroad.

_What does she know? What does anyone know?_

On an impulse, he forced her to look at the ruin of his face. His hand looked huge on her childlike face, forcing it up. He squatted and shed merciless torchlight on his scars. She had to look.

She startled him by examining his eyes _first,_ and he was more bewildered than ever. Drunken, sullen and stiff, he squeezed her chin firmly, in the lack of a better thing to do. His eyes never left hers. It felt as if there was no going back from what he had just done.

Then she looked at the good side of his face, gaunt with the hooked nose, studying his long thin hair with more time than necessary. He saw her face, white and unmarred, as good as she could see his. Her bright blue eyes finally ventured to the other side where no hair grew, first to the missing ear and then to the twisted mass of scar, black slick flesh with craters and cracks which must have gleamed red and wet in the firelight… Finally her eyes rested on that piece of bone visible on his jaw.

And when she saw it all, she began crying…

Seven hells stirred in the dark pit of his soul. Obeying an unknown instinct much stronger than any other he had ever experienced before, Sandor snuffed the torch to spare her any further pain. She could not bear to look…

He laughed softly, bitterly, merging his entire being with the somber shadows of the night.

From the darkness he spoke. Quietly, truthfully, he told her what Gregor had done to him and why.

He had never told anyone before.

She said _nothing,_ just as he expected. _No pretty words for this._

Silence stretched between them, long and morose, spoiled only by the uncertain ragged sound of his breathing.

Yet he finally didn't feel her _fear_ any longer…

A soft hand found his massive shoulder, a bird's touch, a feather touch, a consolation for a man who had never received any for his pain.

"He was no true knight," she whispered. Throwing back his head, he laughed in reckless abandon, for the first time in so long that he could not remember the last time he did it or if he had ever done it. She stumbled from the force of his reaction, but he instinctively caught her before she would fall.

He was forced to agree with the girl. Gregor was no true knight.

Sober as never before, he took her back to the castle without another word, as a proper guard and nothing more, brooding in his self-imposed solitude.

When they were almost at her chamber door, the new _fear_ came upon him… _When was I afraid?_

_She's just a pretty talking bird. She'll tell…_

He imagined everyone at court laughing at him when they found out, Joffrey, Cersei, the king, his Hand, even the little rat of Sansa's sister. He had to stop it the only way he knew how. He _would_ kill her if she told anyone and that was exactly what he had made her understand. Her fear was back by the time he finished talking, palpable and strong, and Sandor was firmly the Hound again.

For long days after, he was examining all faces in court, searching for a trace of recognition, for the first laugh, for any sign of knowledge, but none came his way. _Good,_ he thought arrogantly, happy that his warning was heeded.

Yet sometimes he hoped that the reason she did not tell was not because he frightened her, but because she was… _honest..._ like her stiff father who would not let the condemned wolf be butchered and who was relieved when the other wolf could not be found...

And sometimes another belief came over him, a more dangerous one, that she had simply chosen to keep his confession their secret.

Because she was truly sorry for him… Because she…

_Cared?_

Thoughts just like that one had already almost killed him several times in the past three years and today was no exception.

The guards in the second fortress on the way up to the Eyrie were not impressed by his appearance as a man of the Seven. And the Faith he didn't keep would never take him to the end of his journey; he had to do it himself.

He realised too late that the path from Stone to Snow was very well visible from above. They had seen him coming since he started that day's climb, and he could consider himself lucky that they didn't feather him with arrows. There were three of them and they came on him as ferociously as if they had been Gregor's pets.

"The Warrior give us strength!" one shouted. "We have our orders. No one passes here."

The man didn't stop to explain whose orders they were, and neither did the Hound. He was only a second too late to block the first blow with his empty shield arm. And all because the bugger had to attack him when he was still looking at Sansa in his mind… The slash caught Sandor on the forearm and gave him the necessary opportunity to cut the man in two.

The other two regrouped and took a more prudent stance. They picked on him from each side, using the advantage of the high ground. His back was to the steps leading down the mountain, and if they could make him yield some space, he would fall down and his body would never be found again.

 _Not bloody likely,_ he thought. _I have come this far and I will go all the way. I'll fly to the Eyrie if I have to._

He didn't let them gain a single inch of ground, answering to their sword picking with short strikes, waiting. He was not drunk, only tired from walking. It would take a long time for those two to wear him down.

He let the blows run their course, and then, very suddenly, fed up with the waste of time, he let out on purpose that snarling laugh of his, as a rabid dog in a fighting pit. One of the two men buzzing around him like flies was distracted, and it was enough to open his belly.

The last one had the good sense to run. It was a pockmarked fellow who could have been the _commander,_ now that the Hound had a moment to notice the better quality of the plate and steel he wore. He didn't use the steps. He just slid down the frozen slope on his armoured arse, before the Hound could pull out his sword from his friend's body. The runaway gained speed as he went, with the assurance of someone who wasn't taking that way down for the first time.

The Hound checked his arm. The bleeding was very slight, from one of the old burns, and it was already stopping.

He passed through the open fortress door at dusk and found a dry wall where he could half sit and half lay to rest. He was alone. The three men were the only ones left guarding the place. _They had no arrows,_ he realised. _They had nothing._ Somehow it made him less satisfied about killing them.

Snow was a castle by name but not by size. There used to be a timber keep and a stable behind a single watchtower, but those were no more, due to winter or old age.

 _This is it,_ he thought, _there will be no fire tonight._

To continue climbing to the third fortress at night-time could mean a broken neck. Yet the man he failed to kill might reach Stone alive, a pursuit might be sent up, all the way to Snow… A raven could maybe still fly to the Eyrie and inform those who guarded Sansa about his errand.

_I'd better go._

He leaned on a wall to catch only some hours of sleep, as a soldier in the field or a member of a hunting party would. And when he closed his eyes, the dream he avoided the night before was back to him.

In this dream that haunted him for so long now, the sea and the sky burned green forever.

He was bending over Sansa on her featherbed in the Red Keep, fully armoured, and the reek of blood was on his body. Yet instead of putting his blade against her throat, he was pressing his cruel lips on hers.

And instead of finding them as he remembered them in waking state; thin, closed and trembling from the last notes of the song he had taken at knifepoint, he would always find them full, soft and yielding…

The Hound woke, holding onto the memory of a kiss he had never given.

_I have to go on._

He looked at the pitiful walls and left them behind. They provided no safety for him.

_My deliverance may be up there or I shall find none._

At least he would not get lost tonight. The mountain was threateningly steep now. He could not possibly miss the path leading up, and walking was better than dreaming.

The wind was an enemy in itself now, stinging and howling as a living creature from some hell the septons didn't know or they would surely preach about it. _A hell with no burning,_ the Hound noted with satisfaction.

He had to use his sword as a stick to lean on, advancing always as fast as he could. He would not risk his neck, but he would not slow down.

All around him was snow.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who liked this story so far or commented on it :-)) Thank you )))))


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for all the valuable feedback ))))

"Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants." Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF.

**Six**

The winter night on Giant's Lance was stormy as no other the Hound had seen before.

Riding through the Mountains of the Moon, and the strenuous climb on foot from the Gates of the Moon to Stone and Snow, seemed like a child's play now. The strong wind he experienced before was a soft, summer breeze compared to the raging, savage gale further up, just where he was climbing now.

There were no more trees. Stony, snowy slopes, plains and spires rose to the sky; peaceful, naked and menacing, torn apart with deep, hollow precipices.

_Apart as you and I, Sansa._

The stars were out. Grey wisps of clouds scurried swiftly over the black, starlit sky, carried by the gusts of wind.

The wind was the king of the mountain, and the Hound was at its mercy.

For the first time in his life he wished he were as tall and as muscled as Gregor, but not for the purpose of killing him.

_I have to reach the top. I am so close to it now._

_So close to you, Sansa. Will you hear me out? Or will I have to cut my way through your guards… or your gaolers… and force you to listen to me. It makes no matter._

_There is a truth I've never told you before. One last one. After I may be gone… Should you so wish._

He often wondered what she would do once he told her. More like than not, she'd close her pretty eyes in nameless fear, and blind rage would consume him. _Just like that last time…_

_Or will you look at me now?_

He didn't know which possibility troubled him more.

He _would_ tell her either way.

He owed her that truth.

The wind feasted on his scars as a ruthless bird of prey. His hair was frozen wet from icy drizzle, plastered on his face and entering his mouth. He bent to the slope, unable to walk upright, not even when he leaned on his sword. The useless weapon was sheathed now and the advance painfully slow.

Sandor hoped his weight would hold him down to the earth until he reached his goal, just as Gregor once held his face to the brazier. He couldn't help laughing raucously at his own expense, just one long, derisive laugh, to release the tension. It was a mistake. His body jerked away from the steps carved in the body of the mountain, and he nearly tumbled down…

He grabbed a rock sticking out over the void and hung on it, until the helpless chuckles of his laughter subsided. Then, he was strong as steel again. He wished he were only a massive body, a brutal force intent on climbing and nothing more, not a man who had been to seven hells and back many times over. _Flaming Lord Beric had the right of that…_

 _What you wish is to find her. Walk on all fours, dog! You've prostrated yourself for less… For a warm kennel and an empty promise…_ His former masters would _never_ let him kill his brother. It was a lie Tywin and Cersei sometimes hinted at so he would serve them; the lie he could not see on time, blinded by his desire for vengeance.

Empty pride was for knights. The Hound never needed it. Before, he only had to be certain his arms were always strong enough. Now, he wanted to see Sansa and speak to her. If that required crawling, he would crawl.

And crawl up he did, unashamed, taken forward by the iron grip his will had always had over his desires. _Except that one time…_ The merciless wind whipped his face, cracking both the healthy and the puckered skin. His wounded left forearm pricked, poorly bandaged.

 _Life used to be simple once,_ the Hound mused calmly, vividly remembering another occasion when his great body weight had infallibly kept him from falling face forward into dried horseshit.

The second day of the Hand's tourney dawned sunny and bright. The highborn and the commons filled the grounds and the hastily built gallery in front of the lists. The wooden structure shook every time contenders rode past it and clashed against each other; the talk of the noble guests on it could be heard across the field.

Sandor Clegane was the first rider to appear, waiting for Ser Jaime Lannister. He listened to the bets being made for and against him.

Renly wagered his gold on the Hound, saying he had a _hungry_ look. Littlefinger disagreed, but Robert's younger brother was surprisingly right. Sandor did wake _ravenous_ that day _._ And not only from desire to finally _kill_ his brother. He desired something more, something _new,_ without knowing what it was.

That morning he donned an olive-green cloak over his soot armour. Its colour would go well with the silks Joffrey's betrothed had worn the night before, when he had escorted her to her chambers. He searched for her with mild curiosity, just to see how she fared.

Later, Sandor could never remember the colours Sansa wore that day… Because when his grey eyes reached her pretty face next to her father's, instead of _fear_ he fully expected to see on it, after he'd quite seriously threatened to _kill_ her, his future queen or not; Sansa seemed _engrossed_ with the tourney _._ Worse, she was looking in Sandor's direction, _moist-eyed and eager_. She never spared a single glance for the handsome Ser Jaime Lannister, who had appeared in the meantime. To his surprise, seeing her so appeased his hunger.

_She must want me to win._

Ser Jaime made a mummer's show of saluting the ladies. The lie of it made Sandor angry. He closed the visor of his hound's head helm with an angry clang, after one last look at Sansa… _What would you do if I tossed you a kiss like Ser Jaime just did to that woman?_

Familiar anger kept his lance steady and rock hard. Too hard. He didn't count on the Kingslayer's trick as he well bloody should have, knowing his gallant opponent. _Ser_ shifted in the saddle just before the impact. The Hound's lance missed, deflected by the shield, and Ser Jaime's hit him hard. Sandor's massive body was the only reason he stayed in saddle. He could hear Sansa's shrill gasp over the collective sighing of the crowd, containing both worry and excitement…

 _Just look at me again, will you?_ he thought wickedly. _I'm not done here yet._

He grabbed a fresh lance and spurred forward at a hard gallop, not betraying his intent to imitate the trick until the last possible moment. The result was extremely enjoyable. Lances exploded from the force of the collision, and Ser Jaime ended up in the dirt.

"I knew the Hound would win," Sandor overheard Sansa telling her father, confirming in words what her eyes had already told him… She _had_ wanted him to win that day.

Jaime's ornate lion helmet was ruined and he could not get it off. King Robert was amused and laughed.

 _This is how it is done,_ the Hound thought arrogantly, pleased with himself. Instead of returning to his pavilion, he found a place close to the lists, under the gallery, from where he could watch the joust of his lordly brother in peace.

And Sansa obviously _forgot_ all about him soon enough, sighing loudly for the handsome Knight of Flowers. She begged her father not to let _Ser_ Gregor hurt the boy. As if Gregor would ever listen to the honourable Hand of the King!

Sandor cursed and mocked himself for having mindlessly enjoyed the Hand's empty-headed daughter's empty looks, which lasted shorter than the false spring. From his new position he saw the girl wore a _red_ rose as if it were a lover's gift. He didn't need to ask anyone to know who gave it to her.

Ser Loras shitted out quite a few roses to a great number of ladies the day before. None of them noticed that the good young ser was notoriously uninterested in their charms, as either Lord Renly or any man who _was_ interested in women could have easily told them.

The Hound hated Ser Loras' false manners, but was honestly willing to admit the boy had guts in the yard. He even proved to be a more skilled _knight_ than Ser Jaime that day. Riding a mare in heat against Gregor's badly tempered stallion was a feat yet to be matched in terms of knightly deception. Seeing Gregor fall brought Sandor such immensurable joy, that the Hound's raucous laugh resounded like a booming thunder over all the clapping and cheering.

 _Gregor will not be pleased,_ the Hound mused, gripping his greatsword. And he wasn't. Sandor only needed to wait a little bit longer to have his revenge, until Gregor hewed Ser Loras in two in public, like he did with his stallion.

The boy was the son of the Warden of the South and he'd done _nothing_ against the law. Then, King Robert _would_ ask for Gregor's ugly head; it could not be otherwise in the time of king's peace.

Yet when Gregor pulled the boy off his horse, and just before he would deal a killing blow, Sandor's entire being rebelled against the inevitable. His long legs took him to his brother in giant strides. He forgot all about his desire for vengeance.

_One dead boy in this tourney is enough._

He yanked Gregor back with a gauntleted hand, wrenched him away and rasped _leave him be,_ grateful that he still had his dog's helm on, or his head would have rolled in the dirt that day, just like Ser Jaime Lannister.

Sandor was not a boy of six, nor of two and ten any more. He was a man grown and one of the strongest in the realm. He turned Gregor's killing blow back on him, and hammered at his brother as his equal. The good dog waited, moist-eyed and eager under his snarling helm, for the king's order to end Gregor's life, He avoided his brother's naked head until the command came, despite having to block several more attacks aimed at his face… His arms were finally strong enough to _prevail_ over Gregor, after twenty years of waiting.

The word came… but it was not what he wanted to hear. King Robert bellowed them to stop, surrounded by his Kinsguard and other knights and guardsmen... Twenty swords… No one could cut through that many and live. The Hound went on one knee in a well calculated motion; the last blow Gregor sent at his head missed him as he bowed deeply to the king.

Gregor… calmed down just as much or as little for the king to let him go, able to _control_ his temper if he _wanted_ to, much like the Hound. The opportunity was gone if it ever existed. Sandor felt cheated and bitter for it… But then the pretty bird's voice chirped, undeterred, asking her father if the Hound was the champion now…

He saw dried tears on Sansa's face, though he never noticed the exact moment when she began shedding them, and was glad for it. He knew very well since the kingsroad that he would never be able to stay indifferent to her crying.

Sandor didn't feel much like a champion, to be sure. He felt terribly empty, missing his only true purpose in life. But the boy, Ser Loras, said so as well, calling him _ser._ The Hound sneered he was no _ser_ , but the commons still cheered for him; pitiful, stupid people whose children he would kill some day for Cersei and her eldest bastard.

There was also the champion's purse, which he took gladly. With the lions and the wolves pressed together in the capital, trouble was likely to begin. And when it did, the dog would rather be stuck with gold than without. He never underestimated its power. It was difficult to do so after one served in Casterly Rock.

Yet what stirred him when he was proclaimed champion was not the reward. It was the approval of the empty-headed smallfolk. They kept rejoicing for him after he left the field. _As if I were some great hero..._

And right next to the bitterness in his chest caused by not killing Gregor, a place for a memory was delved, in which he'd always see Sansa, looking at him as the champion, with her bright blue eyes glimmering from old tears.

_Will there be moist in your eyes now? Don't cry when you see me, will you? Curse me, call me awful. Scorn me for being hateful. Just don't cry._

He remembered how he always trembled with joy on those few precious occasions when his cruel words made an opening in her lady's armour of politeness, and showed him a less known part of her. The lady could be angry and selfish, and most discourteous… A perfectly rude, little lady for the hateful, angry dog, sharing his company… So pretty that it hurt.

_Except that you were never mine._

_Would you be mine now that you know what it is to be a woman? Or are you still dreaming of being a queen? You wanted to make people love you… Didn't you?_

As if the people loved anyone… Half of them were not better of heart than their betters by birth who ordered them slaughtered. _Do you remember the man with garlic on his breath? Do you know what he'd do to you? You would not come a maid to the Imp's bed… Assuming you'd live to tell the story..._

It was reasonably common to kill women after raping them; the wares that had been used were easily discarded, not holding any more interest for the men. And dead they could not accuse the rapers, who were gelded or sent to the Wall in times of peace. In times of war, killing was the rule; it made things simpler, and it saved time. And the pious among the rapers could always justify it to themselves by saying the murdered women were whores who slept with the enemy first.

That Lollys Stokeworth survived the night in the merry company of the commons after the riot in King's Landing, with the only consequence of having a bastard in her belly, was quite an exception in Sandor's reckoning.

The night was everlasting and his limbs numbed from crawling. The slope was about to end… Yet there were no _lights_ of the last fort in sight, so it could not have been the end of his night's journey. The Hound had to risk standing up.

A flattened walk stretched forward, maybe eight yards long; a smooth stone saddle, icy and narrow… Shining like steel in the starlight, polished and deadly. The wind howled and shrieked, screamed and squeaked, a larger monster on the loose than the one climbing.

If he crawled, he would fall. If he walked too slow, the wind would toss him into a waiting precipice. If he… glided forward fast on one leg like a fool walking on stilts... or on a rope… The Moon Boy's performances came into mind…

It was mad, but the notion had some merit. The soles of his looted boots had become worn from so much walking. He tried one foot on the ice and it was slippery enough… He imagined himself couching a lance and running at the invisible opponent on the other side. He had to follow a straight line.

Without further consideration, he stepped on the saddle with his right foot and launched himself forward with the left one.

He slid forward on one leg, as an arrow flying forward with meticulous precision, faster than the wind. As soon as the saddle was behind him, he squatted, happy to leave behind the most dangerous part of his journey so far.

After, the stairs continued, very steep and high, each one wide and deep as bowl, half filled with ice. In the first hollow, more illuminated by starlight than the following one, he noticed a strange token; a dark thicket of… _hairs,_ drifting under the frozen surface. They could belong to a woman. Unreasonable fear seized his heart. If women left the Eyrie already for the winter, then Sansa might have been gone as well… or might have been taken away by her captors… He would _never_ find her.

Yet there was no other place in Westeros but the Vale where the Hound believed she could be; all other castles where she could have gone were taken by her family enemies, and it was not easy to cross the narrow sea for a lady by herself. The former master of coin who now ruled the Vale was not anyone's friend, but he would see Sansa's worth as a hostage. Besides, she could have arrived to her aunt's household before Littlefinger did and just stayed there.

_If she ever came here at all..._

It was all in his mind. _Just like that buggering dream._

_Sansa, would you laugh at me if you knew? The hateful Hound cannot shake a dream out of his ugly head... You bloody well should…_

The Hound kicked viciously the ice where the hair was trapped, broke it and took it in his huge hands from the little pool of still liquid, freezingly cold water. When the lock melted a bit from the warmth of his body, it was very long. He smelled it… and thought he sensed the scent of Sansa's bed, from the one time he was in it, drunk as a dog. Recklessly, he tied the lock around his left forearm, over the shallow cut he earned before, imagining it was auburn.

_A stolen favour for the dog. As I stole a song, and I would have stolen a kiss… Or more…_

The climb continued more laborious than before. The steps did not trace the way up in straight line from here on. They went down the mountain, and up, and down again. The irregular progression protected the traveller from the elements, but it also slowed down his journey almost to a standstill.

The wind still reigned, utterly without mercy. Just like there had been none for the wolves when the lion and the wolf finally went at each other's throat.

Lady Stark was stupid enough to take the Lannister Imp as her prisoner, accusing him of crippling her boy in Winterfell. The Hound hated the dwarf, but it must have been plain obvious to anyone that the little gargoyle with stunted legs could _not_ have climbed to the ruinous tower from which the Stark boy had fallen.

Jaime, the only family member who loved the little monster, seethed, threatened Stark and killed some of his guards in a ruthless fashion, and ran away from the capital.

More importantly, Tywin let Gregor and his other servants of that ilk loose in the riverlands. The Tullys and their bannermen needed a reminder that the Lannisters always paid their debts. The lions were not to be touched upon, not even the twisted little gargoyles among them… The opportunity to kill Gregor, which was almost within Sandor's reach, became more distant than ever as long as Tywin had need of his biggest dog again.

King Robert did the same as every time when he didn't know how to deal with trouble his wife's family caused; he went hunting. The Hound went as well. Ser Lancel Lannister was pleased to serve the king his wine, more often than necessary. When the boar opened Robert's guts, the stench told the Hound everything he needed to know. Soon there would be a new king on the Iron Throne, perhaps a bastard one.

Back to the city, a special surprise awaited the Hound. Fellow guards eyed him with more fear than usual… He tried to drink with them and growl at them, but he could not sniff out the gossip everyone tried to hide from him. Later, he understood. They all feared he'd kill the man who told him in his wrath, and maybe they were not wrong. Cersei told him in the end.

Lord Stark, the great honourable _oaf_ , had sent men to _kill_ Gregor in the name of the king in Robert's absence… Passing the judgement for which Sandor had waited his entire life… _By what rights?_ the Hound thought, eager to strangulate the Hand with his own hands.

The opportunity to do just that, or close enough, presented itself soon.

Robert died and Stark tried to buy the gold cloaks from Littlefinger, not knowing they were already bought and paid for by the queen. Slaughter followed. The Lannister guards were ordered to put all members of the Stark household to the sword, except his daughters and the lord himself, who was led to the dungeons from the throne room.

The Hound took part in the necessary bloodshed, enjoying the sensation of strength killing always brought him. The northmen were fighting back, outnumbered as they were. Thirsty for more blood, he arrived at a locked door in the Tower of the Hand, behind which a woman screamed.

Sandor's killing pulse skipped a beat, considering it was _Sansa,_ despite having heard Cersei already had her caged in Maegor's Holdfast. He broke the door with a warhammer… But it wasn't her, it wasn't even her sister. It was that other girl who couldn't stand the sight of blood when Gregor killed Ser Hugh of the Vale in the now fallen Hand's tourney.

The Hound could have raped her and killed her; almost any other guard would have done so. The girl screamed and called him a monster who cut the butcher's boy in pieces. _No,_ he rasped flatly, _I cut him in two._ She screamed harder at that.

Hating the cries of outrage she was raining on him before he ever did anything to her, he dragged the girl with him to the room where they held Sansa, and intimidated _Ser_ Boros Blount, who was on guard, to lock them together.

Later, Cersei gave the wretched thing to Littlefinger who put her to good use in one of his brothels outside the city. When he heard of it, Sandor honestly regretted not killing the girl. She didn't seem like she would make a decent whore, just like some men would never do well in battle. Killing her would have been a mercy. _A clean death._

The day came when Joff gave Sandor a white cloak, and the Hound took it. Why not? He had no wife nor lands, and no one would care if he did. He could not leave to nurse his wounded pride like _Ser_ Barristan Selmy. He wasn't a knight and he wasn't going to die a knight.

Who would take in a stray dog, believed to be as rabid as his brother? Gregor's reputation was growing more notorious every day as the riverlands kept burning.

No, the Hound had never had _any choice_ … He could not leave… He was trapped, just like Sansa became from that moment on…

He hadn't seen her since the tourney.

Draped in old Selmy's white cloak, he listened to Sansa pleading for her father's life in a perfect black dress with a silver chain around her long, white throat. Joffrey played the merciful king, for once, and the girl dared speak… Though she did not seem as _enthralled_ with her _prince_ as on the damn feast after which Sandor had told her everything… Now she was afraid, and suspicious, aware of the _change_ in her situation.

The courtiers no longer smiled at her since she was the traitor's daughter and she had moved very cautiously among them. _You are starting to see them for what they are,_ the Hound thought bitterly. _A bunch of liars..._

Sansa remained aloof and courteous, tremendously beautiful in her grief and her distress. She even managed to let out a genuine, shy smile from the bottom of her concerned soul towards her golden _prince_.

_Not stupid, are you, girl? Just bloody young…_

As he was young when he was burned and later, when King's Landing fell…

The day dawned when the entire court was marched to the Great Sept of Baelor.

Sansa wore sky-blue silk with silver bracelets on her wrists. Her hair was washed and _curled_. She looked… happy… bursting with hope that her father would be spared and sent to the Wall for the rest of his days. The Hound didn't see much good in joining the Night's Watch, though he supposed the notion did have merit over instant beheading.

Cersei seemed pleased as well and Joff… proud of himself. Varys and Littlefinger both wore small, satisfied smiles. The Hound was detached as always, yet mildly curious. Too many different people looked content that day to expect anything good.

After the High Septon's prattling about mercy, Joff asked for Lord Eddard's head. Cersei and Varys protested, taken by surprise for a change. Sandor remained impassive.

The gold cloaks instantly flung Stark before Ilyn Payne, almost as though someone had paid them well to act _that_ fast. Sansa dropped to her knees, sobbing hysterically. She screamed and screamed in her sky-blue dress. The Hound observed with disbelief how she never once closed her eyes when they murdered her father…

Stark's legs twitched and he did the little dance as any other man, when his head was separated from his body... The Hound had seen quite a few suffer the same fate. Lord Stark, Hand of the King, Warden of the North, this and that fat fart… The Stranger took him as anyone else.

At least, Ilyn Payne used the dead lord's sword, a Valyrian blade, deadly sharp… A clean death.

Sansa screamed until she passed out. Joff ordered his dog to carry his lady to her chambers and the good dog always obeyed. Her body was lifeless in his arms, tiny, supple and warm. _You never knew, did you? I've never told you… just like I haven't told you that other thing..._

_Not yet, but this time I will._

When justice was done for the day, or the killing, as the Hound would call it, Joffrey said to his dog, acting surprised. "I was merciful, wasn't I? Why is my lady upset? I gave him the mercy of clean death."

The Hound said what was expected of him, "Yes, Your Grace. As you say, Your Grace."

But inwardly, Sandor Clegane did not relish hearing his own words in the boy's mouth, listening to _his own_ contempt dripping through the wormy mouth of the boy king.

 _He took my scorn as fatherly advice,_ the Hound realised, surprised to sense... displeasure. At seven and twenty he still felt much too young to be anyone's father.

Besides, Joff was almost a man grown now, and Sandor could not bring back the long years where he was guarding him and never paid attention to discipline his own steel-clad tongue. He reasoned it was not his doing what Joff made of his words, but the dismay remained.

At least one good thing came out of the mummers' show in front of the sept that day. The girl remained closed in her room and cried for days. By the looks of it, her love for Joff and Cersei was now well and truly over; a very reasonable, hide-preserving attitude if one asked the Hound, who had witnessed the ugliness beyond their lying, pretty faces better than most.

Some days later, in an hour of boredom and thirst for blood, the boy king remembered his betrothed and desired to enjoy her company.

His _Uncle_ Jaime was defeated and taken prisoner.

His Grace took Ser Meryn, Ser Arys and his loyal dog with him to Sansa's chambers. The girl was whimpering in silence, curled up in her bed, with curtains drawn. _Lost in her bad dreams_ , the Hound supposed. The king commanded his dog to get her out of it.

Sandor scooped Sansa up around the _waist_ and lifted her off the featherbed as she resisted weakly. The blanket slid to the floor. He was wearing a brown doublet and a green mantle that day, and she only a thin bedgown to cover her nakedness.

The Hound put her on her feet, called her child, urged her to get dressed, and pushed her toward the wardrobe as gently as he could. Not wearing armour, he saw _and_ felt how her body filled and curved... Not quite yet as in his illicit longings when drunk after the tourney, and she was clearly weak from refusing food, but the figure of her childhood was about to disappear. Somehow, it didn't please him. She would soon bleed and be married to the little shit to have his babies.

Bluntly, Sansa told Joffrey she _hated_ him.

As if the king didn't surmise that much. But it was not the truth he wanted to hear, so he told Ser Meryn to hit her. The _knight_ backhanded Sansa with his fist gloved in elegant white silk. Her ear bled and she fell to the floor.

When Joff, Meryn and Arys left, the Hound lingered behind for as long as he could afford to be missed. He yanked Sansa back on her feet, not certain why he did it, yet unable to act differently.

 _Stand, damn you,_ he'd thought. _Just stand up._

Moreover, he found himself spitting counsel she'd never asked for. She should just _give_ Joff what he wanted to save herself some pain… The boy would do with her whatever pleased him either way.

Sansa inquired what Joff wanted, with honest curiosity in her watery eyes. The Hound told her to smile and speak pretty lies her septa taught her. She must have known so many of them… Only tell him what he wanted to hear... Love him and _fear him…_ Let the pitiful boy _believe_ he is strong...

Later he could never remember everything he'd told her but it had been a lot. It was already the second time he spoke to her more than to any other highborn lady in his life. And the second time he had an uncanny feeling she had _listened_ to him, _paid attention_ to _him,_ and not to his face.

Sandor left Sansa, and hurried after Joffrey, so as to act on another realisation before it was too late.

"Your Grace," the Hound said when he caught up with the little shit, striving to look and sound more rabid than ever. It was the only notion he could come up with that might _work,_ and which was not too far from the truth _._ He _could_ hurt Sansa much worse than Meryn with his bare hands. "Let _me_ see to the girl when she offends you again. If _I_ hit her, she'll surely die of it."

Joffrey was intrigued at first, but then he scowled.

"No, dog," he rejected the offer as Sandor hoped he would. "Mother says we should keep her alive. And I don't want to hurt her… _much._ I like her pretty."

Three hours later, Sansa appeared in court, well-arranged and composed. She wore that same dress of green silk she had that first night of the Hand's Tourney when Sandor confessed the story of his scars... Cold as a summer snow, she watched as the king commanded one cruelty after another in his court and called it justice.

After, Joffrey forced her to walk with him to the battlements, eager to continue his amusement with his lady.

Sansa realised only belatedly where she was being taken and why. Before the gatehouse leading up to the walls, she refused to move, despite Joff's threats he would have Meryn carry her.

The Hound pushed her forward toward the king. "Do it girl," he said, mouth twisting in an ugly scowl. There was nothing he could do for her. She had to climb.

And climb she did amidst Joffrey's sneers and taunts, nervous and breaking into pieces.

_Just as I am climbing now..._

But, up on the castle walls, when the dog was ordered to show her Stark's head on the spike and when he obediently turned it by the hair, Sansa... stared at it calmly... with poise. The crying, bloody mess she was made into was gone and forgotten in the vast emptiness of her frozen gaze.

She stood very tall, _taller_ than Joffrey. Looking _dead_ on the inside, she asked for how long she had to look.

The Hound was struck by the change and Joffrey merely disappointed. He offered to show Sansa more heads, pointed out that of her septa, but her new composure remained untouched by his ongoing ramblings; her courtesy almost impeccable.

When the heads dipped in tar didn't bring the necessary amusement, Joffrey remembered the missing ones, Sansa's brother's, most of all, the one who caught the Kingslayer.

The boy reminded his dog how he'd called that same brother the lord of the wooden sword in Winterfell. The Hound chose not to remember his own words. He affirmed flatly he didn't recall saying so.

Joffrey promised to bring Sansa her brother's head…

She misspoke again, with that same buggering honesty and bluntness which had caused her honourable father to do the little dance under the headsman's sword.

Sansa said… Her brother might give her Joff's head…

This time, Meryn held her face as he hit her hard twice, splitting her pretty lip in two. The snow-white cloak of the Kingsguard billowed cheerfully from the knight's back as the fresh blood on Sansa's face mingled with her tears.

Joffrey commanded Sansa to wipe the blood.

And then, the Hound saw what no one else had seen… The hint of her daring and passion behind both the tears of her weakness and the implacable frost of her hatred.

Her eyes shone with singular determination. In the next moment she would have pushed His Grace from the battlements, deep down into the bailey of the Red Keep and followed him down herself. Two more purple stains would blossom in the castle whose walls were already dark red like blood. A perfect revenge.

The duty of the sworn shield dictated he should cut her in two, as he did with the butcher's boy, before harm would come to his charge.

Yet on an impulse different than the one which made him save Ser Loras, the Hound knelt before Sansa, just between her and Joffrey. _He commanded her to clean herself, right?_ The king could not blame his dog for disobedience.

Sandor dabbed at the blood surging from her broken lip, surprising himself with the delicacy he never knew he possessed.

The moment stretched forever in Sandor's head, the strength and the weakness in her, the bluntness and the fear… His grey gaze swam in her blue childlike one, lined with blood and tears, more terrifying in its great beauty than any of his scars.

 _I will always keep your secret,_ he thought at that moment. _As you have kept mine._

Sansa lowered her eyes and _thanked_ him, the pitiful creature. Her wild, mad, admirable strength was gone, and she was once more just a good girl who remembered her courtesies.

Sansa the child was gone from that day, in spirit, if not yet in her body.

The Hound should have known it then, but he didn't, not yet. It was not in the dog's nature to immediately name certain sensations it sniffed within himself. It would still take some time before he knew the truth he now needed to tell her.

The memory of Sansa's crying eyes was replaced by a single light, twinkling orange from a solitary wall, a _shelter_ against the wind.

He had arrived to the third and last fortress guarding the way to the Eyrie. There were no gates. The Hound crawled behind the wall. No guards were in evidence.

Only an old bearded man sat alone next to a single fire, unarmed and covered in furs from tip to toe. Long white beard, equally white bushy hair, and a pair of keen, dark eyes, protruded from the bundle of clothing. He must have been at least twice as old as the Hound, and he had a hump on his back.

"What good brings you up here, son?" he asked, tugging at his beard.

"Nothing good," the Hound said, not bothering to invent a lie. This man was no threat to him. "I'm looking for a woman. She is in the Eyrie."

"There is a great lady in the Eyrie," the old hunchback agreed, "but she may not be the one you seek."

"I will be the judge of that," the Hound said with contempt.

"And so you shall," the bearded man eyed Sandor up and down. "Ah, there is the latest warrior's cut. Let me see."

He removed his furry gloves and pulled Sandor's forearm to him with greater strength than was to be expected. In a few moments the man cleaned, _sew_ and re-bandaged the already healing wound. It would take a few days before it scarred properly.

"May I see your sword, son?" The Hound saw no harm in the demand. The man helped him for no reason. So he handed him the greatsword, hilt first.

"Somewhat rusty," he commented.

"Not for the lack of usage," Sandor muttered. Yet the blade _was_ old. He swapped an axe he snatched at the Twins for a damaged greatsword in a village where he lived with Sansa's sister in the riverlands, before the villagers kicked the dog out of the kennel, and forced them to continue travelling.

"You should see the smith at the Gates of the Moon if you intend to fight in a tourney," his unlikely companion was not shy with counsels. "He has blades and lances aplenty, and Lord Royce is most generous with borrowing steel these days. All swords will be needed this winter. The clansmen are many and hungry. And it is said uglier things are coming from the north…"

"I will fight in no bloody tourney, nor swear my sword to Lord Royce," the Hound muttered darkly. "My business is up in the Eyrie and then I'll be gone."

"So be it. The sept up there has never had a septon. The godswood has never had a heart tree… There are no gods up there. Only the sky." The words were a pious, false lamentation the dog could not abide, growing ferocious and in a mood to bite. This man was no Elder Brother and he didn't owe him his life. He might just kill him for the joy of killing, this once. Or to shut him up.

"Do I look like a septon to you?" the Hound asked crudely, scratching a naked bone protruding from his jaw.

"No," his unwanted companion shook his profusely bearded head.

"Than spare me the bleating," Sandor said wildly. Only then he brought down the torrent of his temper by the force of his will.

Snarling had a desired effect. The old man stopped spitting shit about the gods. He turned almost as polite and as courteous as the little bird in her best behaviour when he continued talking. "If it please you, you are more aware of your looks than I. Should you ever change your mind about the tourney, or perhaps about a different trial which is to come after, the smith is the friend of mine. He will be waiting for you at the Gates of the Moon."

The Hound decided mutely the man's courtesies just saved him; the Stranger would not take him in the night.

"Where do the stairs continue?" the Hound asked, not seeing anything in the darkness, blinded by the light of the fire they were sharing. Behind the single wall which was preposterously called a fortress, with only a few rooms on the inner side, there lay a thin stretch of flat ground. After, there was only the steep mass of the mountain, with no path on its flanks that Sandor could see.

"There are no more stairs," the old man said.

"What is there, then?" the Hound asked, sleepy. When he visited the Eyrie with King Robert, there _were_ more stairs, or a tunnel, of sorts, where men could walk up; and also a winch cage they used to carry turnips and onions to the castle. _I will see on the morrow._

The wind and the ascension from Snow to Sky at night took its toll. The man and the dog needed rest or the man would not arrive anywhere. If there was a pursuit, he doubted they would start going after him now, before the new day. What he did had been mad, to climb at night… He should count himself fortunate for making it safely so far without breaking his neck.

Sleep embraced him softly, treacherous and powerful.

In his dream, he climbed on the soft featherbed, smelling not of lemons, but of roses, the red ones which kept their scent for long. Like the one Ser Loras had given Sansa… _It should have been me._ The certainty was plaguing him.

_It should have always been me._

Sansa was lying on the bed. Her hair spilled around her head, like a pool of fresh blood.

 _Maiden's blood,_ the dream always suggested. She wore a thin shift as she did the day he pulled her from under the covers after her father was killed. But, under it, her frame was never as small as it should have been. All her curves belonged to a woman… ample and generous.

If the Hound still had his tourney winnings, he would have paid a woods witch to tell him what the dream meant, or maybe to brew for him some tea against it. He heard of one in the riverlands who could read other people's dreams and cure incurable aches, but he had never seen her.

"I'll have a song from you," he heard himself rasp almost every night, body and soul filled with longing.

But he was never to have his song in that dream. Every time, he would infallibly end up pressing his cruel mouth to hers, and she would respond to him and welcome him as no woman ever did, until all the world went black.

When the Hound woke, there was no darkness left.

The dawn was white and silver, and cold beyond measure; a crystal-clear day under the light blue sky… blue as Sansa's dress on the day they beheaded her father.

He was almost at the top of Giant's Lance. Six hundred feet above he could see the seven white towers of the falcon's nest; a castle made of glass, from some tale. Wild hawks soared high above his head.

But the bag with food and his _sword_ were gone… Even his _boots_ were gone. Stolen overnight by the friendly, bearded man, who was seemingly giving him _just_ counsel. His feet were _wrapped_ in unknown black rugs of some sort, woollen, coarse, and prickly. The tissue could have belonged to a cloak of the Kingsguard if the colour hadn't been all wrong. Just like the colour of that lock of _brown_ hair, which smelled of fruits and flowers, and of the little bird's bed in his wishful mind. The false favour was still stuck on his forearm as well as the new bandage…

The Hound wondered why the old man didn't rip that out as well, opened his bowels and let him bleed to death, if he wished him ill.

Sandor had nothing more to offer Sansa except himself.

All his other possessions, scarce as they always might have been were gone. He supposed it may have been… fair… in a cruel way.

Because what he wanted for a long, long time, was to give himself to Sansa as a man. No more and no less. Just as he so often thought of her as a woman, not a child she was when they met.

_You've become a woman in another man's arms…_

_How I wish they could have been mine._

She was the only lady who ever dared scratch the grime off the Hound's mask in order to reveal the true face of the monster, or perhaps of the man behind it, if he still existed. At occasions, Sandor was not certain that he did. Be that as it may, he still wanted her to see more of him, to see all of him; he'd wanted it for so long and so much that every inch of his being hurt from that desire.

 _Fuck the sword,_ he thought, stubbornly. _I can still kill men with my bare hands if needs be, just like Gregor could…_

Prince Oberyn Martell became the most recent witness of that to his sorrow. But the bugger also took Gregor with him, robbing Sandor of his revenge forever.

Sandor swallowed hard and searched for the way up. He made a solemn _vow…_ for the first time in his life. _By the evening I shall be in the Eyrie…_ He would anoint himself with oil to make it more sacred, had there been any. _Once would suffice, not seven times_ , he thought, absurdly.

It was very early in the morning. Ice crunched under his large shoeless feet, and he could see no way forward.

He walked alone in the Sky.


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sandor's thoughts take a turn for more somber from here, in accordance with the events he is remembering.
> 
> Despite that, the music associated with this part of the climb (and the absolute winter landscape brightness you should imagine Sandor is facing in contrast to his thoughts), is the "Voice of the Living Light" a series of medieval compositions by Hildegard von Bingen
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dehwp_dRlYQ

"A flagon of sour red, dark as blood, all a man needs. Or a woman." Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF

**Seven**

Blinking at the merciless winter sun, high up on the Giant's Lance, the Hound searched for the way further up the mountain.

The Eyrie was a dwarf castle hung from the sky, six hundred feet above him. The whiteness of its distant walls merged with the clear blue sky and soft-looking crystalline clouds.

Sandor walked doggedly left and right; in vain. After a dozen fruitless rounds, he finally recognised the entrance to the chimney, which passed through the heart of the mountain, constructed by the lords of the Eyrie to complete the ascent to their castle on foot. The Hound remembered it from his visit with King Robert; it took the king's party an hour to arrive at the gates of the Arryns, measured from the last fortress below the Eyrie; Sky.

But the opening of the tunnel was now filled with rubble of ice and stone; work of a recent avalanche, rolling down from the summit of the bloody mountain.

He could dig through the debris, but it would take him too much time. And he could not tell from the outside how thick the barrier was. The Hound became very impatient. There had to be a shorter way. He had examined every slope leading up. Yet not one inspired the confidence to try and climb it. The giant shoulders of the mountain were too steep, even for a man determined as he was.

Every time he returned to the chimney and wondered if he should start digging. Every time he rejected it. _There has to be a way,_ he persevered. _There must be._

_Sansa, I will see you tonight._

A large wicker basket for turnips lay broken outside the cluttered tunnel. The avalanche may have ruined the six winch chains, which served to move the wicker and the oaken baskets with supplies up and down. The largest one could hold three ordinary men. Maybe it could carry the Hound as well. But, ruined or not, the winches were in the cellars of the Eyrie. And even if they were down, he would not be able to make them work all by himself. He could not be both _in_ the basket and out of it, turning the winch…

The chain, though…

The links seemed to be made of solid iron. One metal rope appeared to be untouched above his head, while some others hung loosely in the cold morning wind. The chains led up from the now useless chimney straight to the Eyrie. Following an entirely different path than the closed passage, they spanned the bright blue void and the white desolate vastness of the mountain.

Sandor climbed on a pile of rubble. He stood on his toes, and yanked the chain vigorously with his sword arm. He grasped it with both hands, ignoring the pain in his wounded shield arm. He hurled his long legs up and paddled in the air.

 _Good,_ he was pleased. The iron could carry his weight.

 _I must not be heavier than a basket full of pumpkins,_ he thought, remembering the huge orange balls he had seen laying in the autumn fields of the Vale, waiting to be collected before winter.

He rocked back and forth, hanging from the chain with his arms like a boy, gaining speed. When he was satisfied, he flung his long, muscled legs higher up and wrapped them around the metal rope in a powerful swing. He ended up clinging to it as an aurochs on a spit.

 _Splendid,_ he thought, very pleased. When he was after something, the dog took a good whiff and he always found the way.

Slowly, he started on the last part of his ascent. His mind was empty of thoughts, focused only on his labour. Soon, he hung above nothingness, continuously dragging himself forward. Very, very slowly, the hours crawled by. The excruciating effort would take most of the day. He hoped he would be in the Eyrie well before sunset as he slowly crawled up the chain. He was fortunate the wind was mild on a sunny winter day. The brown lock of hair tied around his arm shone with auburn glow in bright sunlight. Or maybe it was simply an illusion of his tired eyes, wishing to believe they would rest on Sansa once again.

Death lured him, taking the shape of a blue, inviting depth below. It would be painless. It would be swift. It would be peaceful. He might die from the speed of falling, before he ever reached the ground. But if he answered the call, he would never see her.

And he needed to find Sansa more than he ever needed anything. Or he would continue burning on the inside, with pain much stronger than the one Gregor inflicted upon him in his childhood.

He never looked down again. He looked up, always up, and inside him…

All he had of Sansa were memories. Maybe it was everything he'd ever have of her.

But he would be brave this time, and he would ask for more. And he would listen to her voice then, as he had done before. One certainty provided consolation in his moments of doubt.

_I can't possibly be uglier than the Imp._

By some curse, the buggering _dwarf_ was so often in Sandor's way. Lady Stark should have killed him instead of letting him return to the capital.

The memory of the little gargoyle reminded the Hound of his second small treason of his liege, which happened on Joffrey's name day. Not that the boy king was any wiser for it, but so it was. The lickspittles and the vipers from the court organised a tourney of gnats in his honour, on a bright and windy morning. The lists were in the lower bailey of the Red Keep. The city had turned too dangerous to let the boy amuse himself anywhere outside the castle.

The Hound was bored, standing behind Joff in a simple brown tunic and studded jerkin. He didn't even bother to don his armour after the morning's efforts in training. Only the white cloak billowing from his broad back betrayed his new position of Kingsguard; a meaningless ornament he was now obliged to wear.

He saw the girl coming. "Lady Sansa," he announced her, with growing interest. She arrived _holding_ Ser Arys' arm. _She is not supposed to be here._ It never boded well when Joffrey called for her.

Sansa was wearing a pretty gown of pale purple silk and a hair net with moonstones. The Hound remembered the wonderfully soft touch of her hair from the occasion he had to pull her out of bed. It was better than thinking of caressing her skin. From behind, he had an exquisite line of sight at her sweet profile and shoulders. He felt nauseous at all his thoughts. She was still a child and did nothing to deserve a dog drooling over her.

His guilty pleasure of looking ended sooner than he thought.

Joffrey took the hand of his betrothed and held it for very long. Sansa endured it demurely, sitting very still. A long sleeve of her dress moved slightly, revealing purple _bruises_ under it. The Hound immediately felt sick in his guts. All joy was gone from him.

Sansa asked him if he would joust and he dismissed the stupid notion. There was no one taking part in the mockery of a tourney who would pose any challenge to the Hound. He realised he didn't fancy killing anyone that day unless ordered to do so. Except maybe Boros Blount, for beating Sansa. The dog's frame of mind was very odd. Normally, killing always held at least _some_ appeal, just as Dornish sour. He needed to spend his days somehow.

The jousting started.

The stupid girl had to defend Ser Dontos, the drunken fool! _Will you ever learn?_ the Hound seethed when Sansa spoke out of turn. _Just let him die, why don't you? There is nothing you can do._

At the same time Sandor became afraid _for_ Sansa, terribly so. She could lose her pretty head, she could be tortured, maimed… Joffrey tolerated no dissent. In that he was Tywin's grandson, fair and square, enriched with a touch of Cersei's cruelty.

Sansa realised her mistake too late, and tried to lie her way out of it.

"It brings bad luck to kill a man on your name day, Your Grace," she claimed… Only half of her heart was in her words, as well as an ounce of pure, undiluted fear.

Again, as on the kingsroad, Sandor spoke for her… Moreover, this time he _lied_ for her, adding his impassive voice to the poor excuse for her actions she had so clumsily weaved. He hoped fervently Joff was too stupid to understand that his dog acted out of turn as well. Fortunately, the boy was as craven as he was cruel. He chose not to ignore _two_ voices calling for bad luck on his pitiful name day.

But Sansa, Sansa went further than saving Dontos' worthless life only for a day… She _found_ her courtesies and suggested the drunken knight should be the king's new fool in such a way that she fooled the king. The Hound's heart pounded in his chest at both her daring and her brightness.

 _She must be truly kind,_ he realised, _she is not content only with staying alive. She will seek a small measure of justice for others, if she can._ As she did for _him,_ when he told her about Gregor…

It was more than most men and women at court ever did from his experience, even the less corrupted ones.

 _A true queen you will be one day, little bird,_ he mused back then, mocking the old-fashioned manner of speech from the songs in his head. _But where will that leave me? In the shadow of your throne; a dog, forever watchful._ He was suddenly glad for the white cloak they gave him; it meant he could stay with her, always. No one could object to the propriety of their relation. Maybe she would see him as a man when she was older… He wasn't _that_ old yet… Maybe… The walls of the Red Keep had eyes and ears, but even those could be fooled… It had happened in the past… maybe more than once…

 _Shut it, dog,_ he scorned himself. _You are most certainly not Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and she is not Naerys. She is just a little wolf forced into a bird's cage by the lions, and you are their loyal dog._

_She will never trust you._

The mood of the occasion with Ser Dontos was lightened by Tommen's insistence he should ride against a straw man. Joff would not have it but Myrcella reminded her kingly brother that she and Tommen were children. _Children should act like children._ The Hound was pleased with the child's logic. The girl was right. "She has you there," he said. The boy king graciously allowed his brother to be a gnat.

Joff was pleased when his brother fell. And the Stark girl, Sansa, she did it again! As if once was not enough... She told Joff he should go to his brother and say how well he rode. The Hound's heart was pounding madly. He intervened, turning the boy king's attention away from his betrothed, pointing out that Tommen was attempting another pass… Distraction worked.

Sandor could almost, almost indulge in watching Sansa again, if the unexpected commotion did not cause his right arm to jump to his sword. He regretted not wearing his armour. His alarm proved to be unnecessary. The Imp arrived with a company of savages, sent by Tywin to act as Joffrey's Hand.

 _Whore killer,_ the Hound thought with distaste. Sandor had heard gossip that the little man was dead, and he mentioned it rudely, as was expected of him. Typically, those who deserved to die rarely obliged the world by doing so. The same could be said of the Hound and of his brother. It didn't matter. The way the dwarf dared speak to Joffrey, he would be dead soon.

The boy king left and his dog had to follow. Leaving, he glanced back at the girl. The Imp was… _sweet-talking_ her. The Hound became rabid at the thought of it.

 _Stop it,_ he told himself, _she is not yours to defend._

He tried to reason with himself in that fashion every day the girl was beaten. Yet every time his reason only made it more difficult for him not to defend her.

He wanted to defend her, always. And not only because she had kept his secret from everyone. Yet he never dared act on any of his intimate wishes; they were like a wooden knight he was bound to lose over and over again. His own cowardice in the matters close to his soul made him irascible.

Unable to break loose from the clutches of his anger, he visited the nearest wine sink as soon as he was out of duty.

The Hound drank steadily since he was twelve. All men drank, so why shouldn't he? Yet at times he recalled Gregor sucked up milk of the poppy to calm his headaches, often at the times when particularly cruel _accidents_ occurred. The Hound adopted one precaution, not wishing to sow _any_ accidents in his wake.

Whenever he drank a lot, he drank alone.

One night, he was drinking on the serpentine steps, in a doorway opening to them; a place where no one ever went, a place where he was safe from causing _accidents_.

In his haze, he smelled _Sansa_ , before he saw her running down the steps like a frightened bird.

He couldn't let her fall. Well, maybe she wouldn't fall, but he couldn't risk it. Not on the battlements when he prevented her from killing both Joff and herself. Not now. _Not ever._

He emerged from the shadows and caught her by the wrist. She was very fast; her breath hitched, fluttering. The Hound was so unsteady on his feet from drunkenness that they nearly rolled down the serpentine together. He asked her if she wanted to kill them both and answered his own question.

Of course she wanted it. She must have wanted it. It was what he would have wanted in her place; to kill them all. It was the sweetest and the most reasonable thought. He could easily understand it.

But _where did she go?_ The thought of Sansa wandering alone in the castle at night angered him terribly. It was not safe, nor prudent.

She lied she went to the godswood to pray for her father and for the king. _For Joff's death, more like than not._ That truth didn't bother him. He found he cared little and less for his charge of late. He was happy it was he who found her and not anyone else.

Sandor let go of Sansa's hand and staggered on his feet. He could see all of her now, through the wine vapours clouding his brains. She had grown _taller._ Her face was no longer childlike, and her teats were ripe for touching.

 _Did she meet with a lover in the godswood?_ He rejected the stupid thought.

She was too well guarded and too innocent for that. He had to stop himself from looking. This close, it was dangerous. He opted for spitting shit through his burnt mouth, told her how she looked, mocked her love of _true_ knights and songs. On a whim, he asked her to sing him a song. She was horrified. And ignorant. She would never give him what he wanted. She wouldn't know how.

Finally, he told her what any man wanted, what he wanted… Wine, dark as blood. Or a woman… Best if she knew. The sooner she stopped being the stupid little bird with those looks, the better.

The Hound wanted and needed a woman, not a pretty child as she was, teats or not. A woman who would see him and take him as he was; his body and his scars, his brooding and his jests, his strength and his anger. All of him. Not only his coin or his cock, as he was accustomed to. It was an empty desire, which came to him in the last years, and he knew it. What he wanted was unattainable.

As soon as his head cleared a bit, he stood as straight as possible and did his duty. He escorted her back to her rooms in Maegor's Holdfast. Together they crossed the drawbridge and fooled Blount that nothing was amiss with the king's betrothed. Not that it was difficult to trick the old toad.

On the steps leading up to her chamber, she surprised him by her _curiosity_ about him. She always did. She asked why he let the others call him a dog. And he spilled out the story of his sigil like a green boy. He was still proud of it, despite everything Gregor had done. Dogs were simple and honest, people were not. Dogs were loyal. They would die for their master, and never lie to him. The girl could not even look at him, and much less tell him the truth. He forced her to look at his face, painfully pinching her jaw.

Angrily, he complained about not getting his song. He was not her betrothed, nor would he ever be her husband. It was not to be his by rights. But the urge to ask for it was stronger than him. He made her a singular promise; one day he would have a song from her, whether she willed it or not… He was terrified by the stubborn strength of his own sudden desire to act on his words...

_I may not be that different from Gregor, after all._

_Maybe Joff will not be what she wants in bed. Maybe she will want someone else when she is older._

She lied _pitifully,_ saying she would sing for him gladly. By the innocent look on her face, she had no knowledge of what she was saying.

Sansa had to lie better or she would die. Not at his hand, but at someone else's. He snorted and told her as much. In court, they were all better liars than her.

Even he, with his obsessive love for honesty, was an accomplished liar at need. He never had the courage to tell her what he truly wanted.

_But now I will._

For a while, Joffrey somehow managed to recall he should not order his dog to hit the girl. He wanted her alive. How else could he make her suffer almost every day? The Hound's sworn brothers did the king's bidding, proudly wearing their white cloaks.

Arys Oakheart was gallant and mildly embarrassed about hitting Sansa, yet he struck her every time, just a little bit less hard than the others. She bruised from it all the same. Blount was the worst, dedicated and cruel. Preston Greenfield behaved as if he were ordered to spank a lackwit child. Mandon Moore and Trant remained cold throughout the ordeal; Sansa could be a sack of grain for all they cared. The Hound just stood by and watched, day after day. He was becoming poisoned by it to his core.

 _I am the worst of all,_ he realised after a while. _I could kill them all and I do_ _nothing_ _._

He began drinking heavily, more than ever before. There were days when he could barely stand on duty; he would see Sansa to the beating or back to her room at need.

He never offered his arm and she never took it; he was not handsome as Ser Arys. He just hanged there, next to her, a mute escort, or as mute as he could force himself to be. Her presence frequently made him more talkative than usual. Sometimes he warned her to hurry. And she always walked on his good side, so that the bad side of his face was away from her…

Her choice hurt him.

 _What do you expect, dog?_ he'd scorn himself. _That she kisses your ruined cheek for not beating her?_

And when Joffrey finally forgot himself and ordered his dog to hit his betrothed, it was Ser Dontos and the Imp who saved the day, not the cruel Hound everyone was so afraid of.

The miserable dog only managed to rasp, " _Enough!"_ at the time Meryn and Boros had already made a bloody mess of her. Sansa would have ugly welts on the back of her thighs for _weeks_. On another occasion, the simple exclamation he dared utter could have cost him his head. But on that day, Joff was so engrossed in punishing Sansa for her brother's victories that he completely ignored his dog's bout of illicit insolence.

Joff commanded Meryn and Boros to make the girl naked…

Suddenly, Sansa's breasts were in plain sight. Sandor's burned jaw dropped open to the point it hurt. The perfection was beyond him. His astonishment was short lasting. The castle full of _men_ was staring at Sansa's body. He lowered his eyes in shame. Thoughts of murder invaded his mind. It was what the dog knew best. He found himself a step behind Joff, with hand on the pommel of his greatsword.

The Imp waddled in. The dwarf's voice had always been bigger than his body. On that day it cracked like a whip. "What's the meaning of this?"

His uncle's verbal lashing of Joffrey stopped Sandor from committing regicide and two simple murders in a row. Instead, he ended up tossing his white cloak to Sansa with huge, unsteady hands, when the savage punishment ended. Sandor was only able to look at her again when she clutched the prickly white wool tightly to her chest. His cloak… hid her completely from the avid eyes of other men... His cloak... fitted her.

He only regretted it was white, and not having three black dogs on the field of yellow grass embroidered on it.

Since that day, the Hound avoided guarding the king. With time, Cersei's new dogs, the Kettleblacks, fought for the dubious honour, and the old dog was glad to cede that bone to them. It earned him the gossip of women at the washing wells how he was not as _fierce_ any more and how the Kettleblacks were younger and stronger. He gave a rat's arse about the rumours. He was young enough and he _was_ still the strongest one. But he would not risk losing his head over Joffrey. Dead, he could not kill Gregor. Dead, he could not… do this other thing he began to ponder, without admitting it, not even to himself.

Some time after Sandor's encounter with Sansa on the serpentine steps, it became exceedingly difficult not to imagine how bedding her would be like.

After the Hand's tourney, he could easily stop his mind from wandering that way. Sober, he saw clearly she was a courteous child, playing at being a great lady; a very young girl-child who still needed time to grow.

Yet all her dresses tightened and stretched on her chest since her father was killed, every day more so. The sight made the Hound sick at heart, in ways he had never thought possible.

He was by far not the only man who noticed the change. Men of all ages and sizes shamelessly leered at her, the daughter of the traitor. They would have never dared do the same when her father was alive.

 _They will yet make a woman out of you at twelve as they have made a man out of me,_ Sandor brooded over a flagon of wine.

He knew from experience that the change was painful. He knew it was both true and false. To act like a man and to have a body of one did not yet make him a man. That reassurance came later, slowly, with every new day, every woman and every kill. At the age of four and ten, maybe five and ten, the Hound considered himself a man grown for all purposes. Nonetheless, some men remained green boys for much longer. Most were squires at twelve, not men-at-arms as he had become.

Sandor couldn't tell precisely how it went with women. Maybe they grew with every child they carried as men grew with every life they took.

Be as it may, Sandor was painfully aware Sansa was not yet there. He knew very well how young she was, yet he could not stop looking at her, and his desire was never far from the surface.

Amidst his new, unexpected troubles, the city was boiling.

Everyone watched each other, fearing treason.

The four pretenders to the Iron Thrones probably had spies; Cersei had her own, and the little birds reporting to either Varys or Littlefinger followed everyone.

From his long years at court, the Hound knew he was being observed by countless eyes.

So he strived doggedly to always act as was expected of him. The more his dog's mind wandered freely and harboured forbidden desires, the more he excelled in appearing as cruel and careless as ever.

He guarded the king when necessary, he drank, he gambled and he whored, all in regular intervals, so that the spies could inform their masters he was a harmless cur. And maybe he was. Maybe that was all he ever was. Maybe that was all he was ever going to be.

_Maybe not, Sansa. Maybe I could be more to you now. If you would listen. You are not so small now that you would not be able to hear me._

In his mind, all he thought of was high treason.

He dreamed of writing a note to the girl to meet him at the drawbridge of Maegor's Holdfast at night and follow him out of the capital. He would take her home.

But what would he have taken from her in return? He couldn't answer himself honestly and he didn't trust himself with her.

The uncertainty always stayed his hand when he wanted to reach out to her. As well as the suspicion she might laugh in his face, refuse with fear, or worse, tell everything to her beloved Joffrey; if the dog scared her witless, and if she still thought him a bigger monster than her beloved king.

The dog never fancied seeing his had on a spike. No one but him was strong enough to kill his brother.

But as the time went by, and the city succumbed to fear, hunger and siege, Sandor found he thought less of Gregor, and more of Sansa.

Now, since he had learned of Gregor's death, _all_ he thought about with yearning was Sansa.

He shamelessly longed for her as new blisters formed themselves on his calloused fingers from gripping the chain. He was still hanging on it as an animal ready to roast. The exertion of climbing was so hard on him that he never felt the cold, nor the wind, cutting mercilessly through the exposed skin on both sides of his monstrous face. His feet, wrapped in rags of prickly black wool, just like his gloved hands, were strangely comfortable and warm. He realised he was more dexterous and safer clambering up the chain without boots, which would only hamper him and slow down his progression. A greatsword on his back would have made the climb impossible…

 _Did the old man know what I was going to do?_ The odd idea that he had received a strange sort of _help_ on his way up appeared unreal. He had never been helped in anything.

The white walls of the falcon's nest loomed closer and taller, and he had lost sight of the crumbling fortress below.

Seven white towers for a white-skinned lady who once believed in gods, both old and new. _Do you still believe in them? You should well know by now that there are none._

_Three hundred feet to go._

He should not look at the blue depth below, seducing him with the easy way out.

His way had never been easy. It would not become so now.

He remembered the first time he had that bloody dream of her in the riverlands. It was only a few days after he fled the capital and abandoned Sansa to her fate, much before he was captured and delivered to Beric Dondarrion.

In his dream, he was with Sansa in her bed. He had a gash on his forehead and he reeked of blood. He drew her in a close embrace and when she closed her eyes, he was not enraged. He bent his head and kissed her deeply. It felt right. The dream always stopped there. He would wake, disturbed and wanting. He wished his dream to go on, to see what she did, what he did, what they did. It never happened.

Months later, in the Quiet Isle, he started suffering from that other dream of her… where he would have his song… Both dreams haunted him, poisoning and nourishing his being, until he decided he should just look for her in the only place in Westeros she could have possibly flown to.

_The Eyrie._

He emptied his mind of everything and focused only on his oversized body, moving up the chain. He feared becoming numb from exhaustion before the end.

 _No,_ he denied the possibility. _I am going to reach it if it's the last thing I do._

Since the night on the serpentine, he avoided drinking there, fearful of what he might tell her or do to her if he stumbled upon her dead drunk. It was not as if most men were capable of much in that condition, but he wouldn't take the risk. He wasn't like most men.

Yet he frequently prowled the castle in the hour of the ghosts when he was still reasonably sober, skirting the places where he hoped he might run into her, alongside the way leading from Maegor's Holdfast to the godswood. Yet he never chanced to come upon her again, during her own wanderings. Sandor had no doubt Sansa sneaked around the castle at occasions. Who could blame her? The dog was used to kennels, but it was not in the bird's nature to be caged. And the wolves loved the fresh smelling forests, not the dwellings of stone filled with stale air.

Finally, one night the city _burned_ in preparations for battle. Catapults were made, weapons and shields were hammered. The Imp burned the houses of the poor under the walls of King's Landing to make room for the defence. Stannis burned the kingswood, as did the Imp's savages, sent forth as undisciplined vanguard to bloody Stannis' troupes...

The Hound withdrew to drink on the roof that night, away from all the burning. He was not yet dead drunk when he had heard her; the rustle of her gown, the flutter of her hurried steps, soft and quiet in her slippers. She came so close to the edge and stared at the city, admiring its war-provoked splendour. In a blink of an eye she bent over, wailed, and clutched her belly. She could have fallen…

He was with her faster than ever, caught her arm and steadied her. She grabbed a merlon for support and cried for him to let her go. He realised he _wouldn't_ let her go. He was afraid she'd fly… Maybe she came here to kill herself. Maybe she would end up crippled as her brother… He asked her if the latter was what she wanted.

She was struggling in his grasp, stating firmly she was not going to fall and it was _he_ who scared her. She glanced away from him in his grip, strongly so.

He became angry and let her go.

_Why do I care? I should let her break her neck next time._

In a rasp, dripping contempt, he reminded her she was glad of the sight of his face when the mob had her. It had been only a few days before. Myrcella departed to Dorne and the populace rioted, provoked by Joffrey's stupidity. The king's party had to return to the castle fast. Sansa was a bad rider and she lagged behind.

The Hound left the king to his own devices and those of his sworn brothers. He even left Stranger to fend for himself. Truth be told, his bad-tempered horse had a better chance of staying alive than any knight or nobleman among the bloodthirsty multitude.

Sandor returned for Sansa, swift as a summer storm. He let the commoners gut Ser Aron Santagar and quarter the High Septon in peace, never sparing them a second look.

But the Hound ensured that the men who were pulling Sansa down from her horse regretted the day they were born. He laughed victoriously when he mounted in front of her, and he was… transformed, as they rode back to the Red Keep. He was a different man for a short while, and Sansa clung to him as though he were the last man alive in the world.

But in the dark of the night on the castle's roof he was again only a monster she could not look upon.

Except that, once more, he judged her wrongly. Sansa chose that very moment to surprise him again.

She made herself look, really look at his face. He wondered where she had found the courage. She looked at every ridge and crevice and in the end she stared straight into his sullen grey eyes. He hoped, he hoped… He couldn't tell for what.

Her voice betrayed her, ruining the magic of the moment, trembling as always. She _stuttered,_ saying she should have thanked him and how he was brave….

He snarled back at her. Bravery was not necessary to chase away the rats. She pouted at him as a highborn brat and asked him if he liked to scare people, never lowering her eyes from his…

He enjoyed to _kill_ people. Death was the same for everyone, for the high lords and the burned monsters.

He reminded her how her father died, doing the little dance with his feet. And it was what the buggering lord deserved, for daring send his men, the king's men, after Gregor! Only the Hound had the right to kill Gregor. No one else. His entire life was determined by his brother. No one would ever see Sandor as more than his scars. No man, and certainly no woman…

He told Sansa killing was the only thing that mattered, the sweetest thing there was.

She just had to keep asking him questions, annoying questions. Why was he hateful? He wasn't, the world was. The knights were killers with pretty names, that was all. He was just being honest about what he was.

She was still too stupid to grasp it so he applied himself to _make_ her understand. He drew his sword and pressed the edge against her neck, just under the ear, and told her very clearly who he was. _A butcher._ And as long as he had a sword in his hands, he had no one to fear. Not even Gregor. He could kill her as well, a girl of twelve, if his masters asked it of him. Could he? The question did not bear answering… His steel glinted ominously against her pale skin. He steadied his arm. He probably could, but would he?

He finally removed the blade when she asked him if he feared the men across the river.

"All this burning," he rasped quietly and sheathed his sword. Sometimes he wondered how the battle would go. Many years had passed since the scaling of Pyke. And the lands were so salty and damp on the Iron Islands that the siege engines had not been burning properly. But now… "Only cowards fight with fire," he said with finality.

She judged Stannis was no coward. He could agree to that, but he was not Robert either. She asked what he would do when Stannis crossed. He would fight and kill he supposed. Maybe he would die. It was a possibility in any battle.

She asked if he wasn't afraid _gods_ would sent him to some hell for all the _evil_ he had done.

"What evil?" he protested. He hadn't done any more evil in his life than any other sworn sword of any great house of Westeros. He merely did what he was told, as everyone else he knew. And had he been cruel on purpose, and caused _accidents_ like Gregor, it wouldn't have mattered at all. There were no gods, just like there were no true knights. The strong ruled the world…

He explained to her all that. She accused him of being awful and insisted that the true knights protected the weak.

Her chirping annoyed him. It made him think too much, more than he ever wanted or needed to think in his simple life of a soldier. Thinking was unpleasant. He told her to fly away and she did…

He missed her as soon as she left. He realised he would have loved for her to stay longer, to call him names, to call him awful, hateful, anything she wanted. And look at him… always…

Straight in the eyes, as she did that night.

He hadn't desired her at any point of their conversation. Yet his spirit was full of her, more than it had ever been of any other woman.

The next day he learned why she was bending in pain when he had caught her. No news remained a secret in court for long, and the Hound could sniff out most of them if he so wished.

Sansa had _flowered_ …

Another pretty word for a horrible truth.

Sansa was a now a woman in the eyes of everyone, fit to be wedded and bedded, and left at the mercy of her lord husband. They would break her, make her bleed more.

The Hound's guts constricted. He had never made any woman bleed that way. He wished she hadn't had her blood, he wished she had remained a child. It would be _safer._ Yet he was sickly proud and happy, knowing she must have flowered in his arms.

After so many occasions of holding her by chance, he sometimes believed she belonged there. He had no doubt Sansa never shared that understanding, but for him it was a truth he could not deny. Maybe he could make her see it one day.

_One day soon._

His arms were now almost completely numbed from climbing. He didn't feel his fingers, or his toes. Relief spread over him. A glance forward between his legs revealed that the high white walls of the Eyrie were in sight. The last twenty yards of slithering up the chain were the greatest exertion of the body he had done in his lifetime. He would not fall now. The square opening in the walls where the large basket normally passed was too small for him in upright position. He had to squeeze himself through very carefully, limb by limb, forcing his muscles to obey him. Inside, he had to clamber only a bit more.

As soon as there were only six feet of space between him and the floor of the cellar where the winch chain ended, he let himself fall down like a ripe fruit. He would be bruised. His muscles were stiff. He couldn't stand up or straighten his arms and legs. He stretched them slowly. Everything hurt from the unnatural position he spent half of the day in.

Next to him, there were several frozen oxen carcasses, seemingly dead for a while. Those animals hadn't turned the winch for days, weeks, maybe… It was hard to tell. He refused to think on that now.

He crawled towards the window of the cellar, facing the inner bailey. The day still lasted and the bright sun shone over the Eyrie. There were no guards to be seen. There wasn't anyone.

_She has to be here. She must._

He just needed a place to regain his strength, a place away from the cold, bright day in the mountains, and then he was going to find her. Part of the cellar floor was wooden and almost warm in comparison to the icy air on the outside, though the place was never heated, that much was certain. His breath came out as crystal from his burned mouth.

 _Sansa, let me just close my eyes for a moment and then I will find you._ He had some time until sunset. He decided not to think how they were going to descend from the Eyrie if she chose to go with him this time. _I've found one way, there must be others._

His eyelids dropped of their own accord, heavy from unwanted sleep and extreme drowsiness.

In his dream, he wasn't climbing to the Eyrie. He climbed to Sansa's bed and rasped, "I'll have a song from you."

The song was what he wanted. Not a wail of pain.

She was in her bed this time, too far from him to give her that kiss. She let him under the covers, soft and sweet smelling. The feathers creaked gently under their joined weight.

"I'll sing it for you gladly," she replied courteously. Her words rang melodious and deeper than he ever remembered her speaking. Her voice was not tremulous… and he felt terribly warm from it. She must have known what she meant this time.

 _How do you find your pleasure?_ He thought instantly and shied from asking her out loud, afraid his pretty dream would end as it always did, if he said too much with his big, wicked mouth.

Sandor was half awake and half dreaming from sheer exhaustion.

Awake or asleep, he did not know whether he was at all able to get what he wished for.

But he would be a seven times cursed fool if he didn't try.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading )))


	8. Eight

"I only know who's lost. Me." Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF

**Eight**

When Sandor Clegane stirred from the longest and sweetest dream of his life, it was nighttime.

"Sansa," he murmured, drifting between sleep and waking state. She was resting in his arms. His body was draped in hers, just as he always wanted. They were not dressed in his dream. Reclined, she was everywhere. Her long arms had wandered to his head, seizing it. Her legs were intertwined with his, never quite reaching his feet. Heat pooled between their bellies, inviting them to join their bodies. His arousal was there, but it had no hold over him.

He could not tear his gaze away from the crown of her head, lying gently on his chest. His arms were lost in the utmost smoothness of her back and hair, occasionally grasping the curves of her hips and arse in wordless wonder.

Suddenly, Sansa retreated her arms to herself and let her elbows sink into his flesh. Flushed, she lifted her face on her hands and stared at him with quiet joy on her impeccable features. He had never seen her so radiant.

Before she might have spoken in his dream, she paled, became ghost-like and was gone.

Sandor clung fiercely to the vanishing dream-image of Sansa, like a man drowning might strive to catch a straw. He found himself most unwilling to open his eyes.

_Bugger yourself with the hot poker, dog. This isn't real. She would never. Certainly not after you… after the last time she had seen you… Certainly not like this._

_Would you, Sansa? Would you one day?_

He would know _this_ to be a dream even when soundly asleep. He could not find joy in the lie it represented. He hated lies.

Yet Sansa felt so warm and so _real_ , when she slipped through his fingers and turned into nothingness, that he could almost believe it was her. As if she hadn't been an illusion. As if this dream and all his other dreams of her had been more than that.

The merciless throbbing in his body forced him to rise. The unnatural position during his climb up the chain had put a strain on muscles he rarely used. He felt his limbs and shoulders acutely now that they had cooled down during sleep.

 _This is real, dog,_ he scorned himself into obedience. _Get up._

In life there was no place for dreaming. Unless one wished to lose his head before his time.

The Hound's overgrown feet felt like two giant blocks of ice. _Good to build the Wall with._ When he unwrapped them from the strange black scarf left to him by the sneaky old man who had robbed him in the Sky, a thin crust of ice formed around the big toe on his bad leg. He insistently rubbed it with equally oversized hands until he could feel his toe again.

_Buggering winter._

Having no boots, he wrapped his feet back into the black rags. He should walk fast in order to keep the blood running through his stiffening body.

 _I am here,_ he realised, belatedly, fully awake and starving. He hadn't eaten for the entire day and two nights.

_I am in the Eyrie._

The desire to immediately see Sansa vanquished the gnawing hunger. The Hound ventured up from the cellars, through an elaborate gateway, and into the dark courtyard of the great castle.

All windows were dark.

The moon was out but all the falcons were sleeping.

 _It is late,_ he told himself. _They must have put out the lights and the fires to save candles and firewood in winter._

Yet a closer look at the tower nearest to him revealed there were shutters covering every window. A door, on the contrary, opened far too easily on the ground floor. No one had bothered to close it, much less bolt it.

_As if no one is expected to come here._

_As if no one can come here in winter at all..._

Shivers ran down the Hound's spine. The stairwell was dusty, the rooms next to it empty. The cold was devastating.

_This place hasn't been heated for weeks._

_There isn't anyone,_ he realised with dullness. _I was wrong from the beginning. She could have never been here. Or if she ever was, she is long gone by now..._

_No one is here._

_It was all for nothing._

He should be angry but he wasn't. He was hollow and that was worse. Doggedly, he walked from one tower to the other of the seven white spires of the hawk's nest, all empty and black at night. The wind was his only companion, whistling merrily, mocking the dog for his tenaciousness.

He entered the Great Hall of the Arryns. The high seat with moon and falcon carvings gaped empty like the rest of their abandoned castle. The short way out of their hall was open as well. _The Moon Door._ He could take it and who would care? The wind howled at the walls, whirling through the hall, wild and angry as a three-headed dragon. To make a few steps towards the opening would suffice; the gale would do the rest for him.

He turned his broad back on to the Moon Door.

_I am not yet done living._

_She has to be some place else if she is not here._

But he was no closer to finding her than that first day on the Quiet Isle when he went to the Elder Brother and told him he would leave, unable to stay there in peace, burdened by his memories, his regrets and his dreams of kissing Sansa with his cruel mouth.

Dreams of which he had a most vivid one just moments ago. One he had never had before. He made his hands into fists.

The hands of a killer.

_It can't be. She would never tremble from joy at their touch._

_She would never._

_Would you, Sansa?_

He found that hope was too much for him. It unhinged him more than the familiarity of despair.

On the occasions Sandor knew he must have pleasured women in bed, it was his cock that did it. As an older lad he discovered that the exact way of how it could be done changed from one woman to another, much as varied forms of sword fight had to be used to bring down different opponents in battle.

On the contrary, Sandor found his own pleasure easy enough. Almost any woman he bedded satisfied his needs when they appeared, which was not that often, or as often as for any other man. He would not waste more time or thought on relieving his flesh than he normally did on eating and drinking. At occasions he was too drunk to finish his business and that was the only difficulty he had ever encountered.

The lewd talk in the inns about some cunts being tighter than the others contradicted his experiences. He had never seen much of a difference. They were all tight enough for him.

But in his latest dream, his _hands_ had done all the work. The unsettling images of Sansa would not leave his head, ringing almost, almost like the song he wanted, but not quite. His hands would never look the same to him again.

_Maybe it would feel as good if I had strangled Gregor with them and crushed his skull on a wall while he still breathed, as he had done with little Aegon._

He suspected it might not. And Gregor was already dead so he would never know.

There were no gods, but there were hells, Sandor knew. His dreams must have been hell, designed to torture him.

Or a very special heaven...

He laughed raucously, shaking his head, chasing the cold wind away.

 _Bugger off,_ he thought of the cold.

Sharp wind burrowed its way through the Great Hall. More dashing than the buggering Winged Knight, it occupied the high seat of the Arryns as the one and only Lord of the Eyrie.

_What shall I do now?_

He was bereft of direction as only one time before in his life, the time when he had lost everything. Shame crept through him. He remembered his actions on _that_ day and night every single day. He climbed onto the high seat of the Arryns and sank in it, burying his ugly head between his hands. The chair was well suited to his size, he noticed, and it must have dwarfed the real lords or perhaps frightened their bannermen into submission.

He became so lost in his memory that he stopped hearing the wind. He was so enthralled that he could have frozen on that chair and waited for spring.

That night, almost two years ago, the sky had burned green. The Hound walked into the fire many times until he could walk no more. He refused to obey his masters. The buggering dwarf showed off as being braver than him and Sandor hoped he would burn for his pretence. The Hound had died that night, much before the Elder Brother ever remembered to bury him. Only a craven remained; the little burned brother who would never be strong enough.

All he had ever believed about himself were lies.

Everything was a lie. The Hound was a lie to begin with. He had never been real. He was only a fearsome mask young Sandor had crafted to hide a frightened boy from the awful world.

Sandor _hated_ himself that night as much or more than he hated Gregor. The weak were butchered. He had become flesh for slaughter as anyone else. He was wood for burning...

He found wine. There was nothing else for him.

In his weakness and growing drunkenness, he suddenly remembered that one other thing that _mattered_ to him. The battle raged on… He could find Sansa and offer to take her out of the bleeding, burning city as he had pondered doing so many times before and never found neither the courage nor the opportunity to ask. The timing was perfect; by the time anyone looked for her they would be far away. With some luck, they would both be counted as dead in the fighting or in the looting that came after.

He didn't know for how long he slept in her bed. But when she woke him, by stumbling into it with him, no matter what she said or did, she appeared to him more and more false.

_As the world._

Sansa was just another lie he had told himself. He had thought her different. He had thought the court did not kill all honesty in her, but it was clear it did. She had never understood anything about him, never noticed anything he had tried to do for her, never wondered about his existence or noticed him, except in order to avert her eyes. All she had for him was fear and empty courtesies, and the inability to look, as if he had been Joffrey, or worse, his brother.

She was as awful as the world, as was he.

He suddenly wished to see her blood, both her maiden's blood and life's blood. They were both doomed anyway. Why should he spare her? Why did he bother before? Why did he never, never hit her? He should fuck her bloody, rip her heart out and be gone! Why fight the way of the world when it would always remain the same? He was to take his song at sword point, he was…

Her real song was so innocent that it hurt more than any wound ever did. He forced himself to listen. The more he listened, the more he became awake. The more he listened, the more he became himself. It was not her fault he was craven. Not her fault he was a lie. She should not pay for his losses.

He looked at his dagger, the mute proof of his crime on her throat. He had almost twisted it into her flesh. He removed it more carefully than when he shaved himself in the morning. _What have I done?_ The thought was unbearable. Then he did something he hadn't done since Gregor burned him. He cried…

Her tiny hand found his cheek and his tears. He cried more, enjoying the touch which was not his to take, a caress freely given.

"Little bird," he whispered.

If his raspy voice could caress her back, it would have done so, but at that moment he needed to keep the rest of him away from her, for both their sakes.

She would never want to go with him so he left. He ripped the bloody white cloak of the Kingsguard from his back and left it behind. He had surely betrayed all the vows he had never made that night. _Best be rid of it,_ he thought.

He still didn't know then, what he needed to tell her now.

In his solitude, on the road to Riverrun he plotted for himself, once he got drunk and imagined how it would be if he had made her his by force that night and taken her away from the capital against her will. They would travel together, the two of them alone, and he would be the stronger one. She would be helpless without him. If he forced her into it, she would probably spread her legs for him as her septa had told her she should do for her lord husband. She might obediently do _anything_ he wanted. She might grow to like it… Some men told stories how it could be so... Truth be told, those same men frequently offered to face him in single combat in the tavern only to avoid him thoroughly the morning after in the training yard. Gnats, all of them.

The brutal fantasy did not survive the ruthless honesty of his mind more than a few moments.

The Hound had been nothing but observant in court; his survival depended on it. And he had been watching Sansa playing her part on every occasion they were both there. Taking her virtue might not be quite the same crime as killing her father, but it was undoubtedly a treason that came very, very close to it, in the scathing, unflattering honesty of things.

In all the time Sandor had guarded Cersei and her hens he had yet to hear that a lady secretly wanted to be fucked bloody by the likes of him or Gregor. And he had frequently heard about various affections involving different men. The hens chatted freely in the presence of a guard hidden in the shadows; mute and resembling just another pillar or a gargoyle of the castle red as blood. Clearly, the women of noble birth dreaded rape even more than the lowborn wenches. Some wanted a rough tumble with a strong man, a fortunate preference which sometimes brought Sandor free pleasure, but those were never young girls of twelve.

Had he taken Sansa that night, the only true response he would have ever received from her in the future would have been her cold, _Stark_ reserve. She would give him what she would _think_ he wanted to spare herself some pain...

To him...

To him who wanted her song, her joy and her anger. He wanted her, unbridled in her expression.

He wanted the girl who nearly pushed Joff from the battlements without fear for her own life, the one who firmly hugged her wolf on the kingsroad. He wanted her to embrace him as strongly as she did her little pet. He wanted her to smooth her dress and steal a glance at _him_ as she did at her prince when she fancied herself in love with Joffrey.

He wanted her to say she knew he would win when he rode in a tourney and to keep her composure if Sandor killed a man, just as she did when Gregor murdered Jon Arryn's squire. He wanted the girl who dared tell him he was hateful and inquire why he let people call him dog. He wanted the girl who would wrench herself free from his embrace when she didn't want it and demand he let her go.

He wanted her to surprise him every day anew. He wanted her to satisfy the desires he never knew he had before she fulfilled them; to touch his shoulder when he thought of Gregor, to caress his face when he cried from pain.

Had he taken Sansa against her will, the Hound had no doubt she would treat him with as much love and warmth as she had kept in her heart for Cersei and Joffrey ever since they had betrayed her trust. He gathered from her reactions that she had even treated the Imp with utmost reserve of her courtesy when he tried to act as her gallant saviour; she had refused the new chambers he'd offered her in the Tower of the Hand, and returned to her cage in Maegor's, where Cersei had put her.

A cage was a cage and a Lannister a Lannister; the girl had learned her lesson well. He noted her lack of interest in good food served at court, as well as in the gowns and jewelry she either saw on other ladies or was forced to wear. She complimented everything at need and dressed to please Joffrey and diminish the beatings. She ate and drank, but she never _beamed_ at food as she did on the feast after the Hand's Tourney when Joffrey served her and fed her from the platter, acting every inch as her prince from the songs.

She looked at the Kingsguard who hit her on command without any expectation, except maybe the one to stay away from them if she could. Even when Ser Arys played the gallant knight with her, on the occasions when he was not ordered to strike her, and when she allowed herself to exchange harmless gossip with him, her distrust was palpable.

Sansa didn't look up twice to those who had betrayed her for protection.

So the Hound knew.

If he had taken her by force, no gifts he could give her, no food he could bring her, no generous gestures of protecting her from other men would change it back. Nothing he could do would ever make her talk to him in earnest again. He would be a dead man for her as much as Joffrey and Cersei had become. She might cry out in pain if he hurt her body, but she would even hoard the bitter tears she shed for her true losses for herself. She would look at him as she did at her father's severed head when he had to turn it for her, with large, blue, unseeing eyes.

All he would have from her would be her flesh.

Until the day she would shit on his head and fly away, just as she had done with the Lannisters.

Truth be told, Joffrey and Cersei gave a rat's arse if they were dead in Sansa's eyes, as long as they had her body safely locked up in the castle. Maybe the Hound wouldn't have minded either if all he wanted were the keys to her cage and always the same tight cunt readily available.

Yet the more he imagined being treated by her as Joffrey and Cersei were, Sandor realised he _would_ have minded, terribly so. The passive, placid lie she would offer him would kill him as surely and as swiftly as wildfire after poisoning his heart first.

Because her flesh would never be enough.

If he wanted only that, he could have had it after the Hand's tourney, he could have had it at the serpentine, on the roof… He could have frightened her into not telling anyone, make her a double prisoner, of the crown and his own. It wouldn't be so difficult to make her see her best interest in keeping the secret. He had heard enough gossip to know that the noble ladies who had lost their precious maidenheads mostly kept quiet about it and produced aurochs blood on their wedding night. Cersei was no exception.

And if his crime would be discovered, he would lose his head over a cunt. It was not unheard of, not even in the history of the Kingsguard where at least one of his long dead foolish brothers had lost his life over an equally dead Targaryen queen.

Yet it had never _occurred_ to him he could do _any_ of it during his and Sansa's time in King's Landing, before the bloody battle, when he was in his right, murderous mind. No, on the contrary, he might have lost his head for speaking against Sansa being beaten had Joffrey been in a different mood when the Hound had said enough. Now that, that would be unheard of in Westeros. In all their time together, it had never passed through the Hound's head to deceive Sansa and direct her innocence into pleasing him in any form.

Her innocence angered him, caused him to mock her cruelly, invited him to snarl, growl and bark at her, wishing she would see things for what they were. Including him, him most of all. He was not only his scars. Why wouldn't she look at him and see for herself?

Even when he wished to force a song out of her, it was not now, not truly, it was _one day_ , in the future. She would be queen or married to some bugger who would not know, nor value the treasure he had; his only concern would be her whelps and her claim. The marriage bed would no longer be a secret to her. Then, maybe, if she understood that he helped her when he could, chance was she might give in and say yes if he demanded a song. She would never want him, but she could say yes if he was determined enough. And then the Hound _might_ surprise her by showing her how a little bird could sing... Against her own expectations in the matter. If the dog was lucky once in his life, maybe she would come back for more, if she dared. If she stopped fearing him one day...

Because, unlike Joffrey and Cersei... Unlike the dwarf who liked playing a mummer's farce about being a good man, but who still had only the best interests of his family on his mind, and never what was good for Sansa… Unlike the Imp, the Hound... At some point he started wanting what was good for her, without knowing very well what that was or if he was able to give it to her.

Because Sandor… what? The reason eluded him for too long.

And he had come to regret everything he did and didn't do that night. He regretted going to her room. He regretted not going there sooner. He regretted being drunk. He regretted not blacking out completely so he would sleep till the morning came. He regretted holding a dagger at her throat and his cruel thoughts of rape and murder. He regretted leaving her. It was his last craven deed that night. By abandoning her to some better man, his only achievement was sealing her unjust fate.

The Lannisters reserved no pretty golden knight for Sansa. The buggering imp was no better man, nor braver man than Sandor. He merely survived his foolish sortie in the battle and his father found him a suitable woman to breed with, so as to better rob her of her claim.

 _That_ little piece of news almost had Sandor killed in the riverlands. He drank too much too fast, and one of Gregor's pets nearly did for him at that inn in the riverlands. While riding away, febrile and about to succumb to the wounds he had sustained, the Hound added another regret to an already imposingly long list of them. He regretted not making Sansa his and even not killing her when he still could. He hated himself for regretting this, yet he couldn't prevent the thought from surging in his feverish mind. He must have been going mad. At that moment, it would have been a mercy if the little she-wolf, Sansa's sister, had simply killed him as he'd asked of her.

Until the truth finally dawned on him, spurred by one of the first dreams he had of Sansa on the Quiet Isle, those more recent ones in which he climbed onto her bed and said he would have a song from her.

He loved her.

He loved her.

He loved Sansa.

It was the most gut-wrenching feeling of all.

Yet that single truth explained all his contradictory actions and inclinations concerning Sansa better than any other...

He loved her...

And just like the rest of him, his love was _nothing_ like the love of the _true_ knights from her gallant songs. It was visceral and convulsive and it would not content itself with any lesser affection in return.

Yet what kind of man considered _murdering_ a woman for not loving him back? Or not as _much_ as he needed her to love him? Perhaps sicker than Gregor who butchered for his own amusement those people he could afford to kill, without suffering a reprimand of his masters.

Sandor had told Sansa he hadn't done anything wrong in his life. Well, maybe he had and maybe he hadn't. He was not a septon. How should he know?

Until the night he had nearly failed her, by ending both her virtue and her life, he never paused to consider what he had done and why. But for that one night he might one day burn in hell, of that he was certain. He needed no septon's verdict on that count.

Yet he needed to tell her. It was in a man's nature to pursue the woman he loved. How else was he ever to receive her honest answer to his plea?

It occurred to him so many times after the bloody battle that he didn't even leave her a chance to take him on his offer. He just proceeded assuming the worst of both her and himself when she closed her eyes with fear and couldn't look at him as he so badly wanted.

The Hound hopped off the high seat of the Arryns, resigned and calm, instinctively avoiding the gusts of wind just as he would dodge blows in a fight at need. He could force his aloofness on him, much like Sansa, even in a wretched frame of mind. His regrets had only served to keep him in place. They would never take him where he needed to go. To the place where she was.

He only needed to discover where that was.

He dragged himself back in the direction of the cellars. They were warmer than the rest of the castle. He would shiver there until the morning. Maybe he would find food and wine. In the Quiet Isle he had almost lost the habit of drinking, as there was rarely any wine to be had, but tonight he would gladly drink himself to oblivion, just this once before continuing his quest.

When passing through the yard, he suddenly saw a _light_ in one of the towers, the westernmost one, on the top floor. He ran up as one possessed by the darkest demons from the seven hells.

In the highest room of the highest tower, a tall silhouette of a woman stood at the open window, leaning on a slender balustrade made of smooth white stone, just like the rest of the pretty outer walls of the bleeding castle. In her right hand the lady held high a lamp, burning bright. Fire leapt up fearlessly from the little pond of oil in it, encased by a translucent ball of Myrish glass. The lamp helped the moon illuminate the starless night. Auburn hair cascaded down the woman's curved back and Sandor's heart drummed against his will.

"Sansa," words escaped him. "Is it you?"

The lady turned. It could have never been Sansa. She was _short,_ shrunken from age, older than any woman the Hound had ever seen. An ugly servant forgotten in the Eyrie. The extreme old age of her face shocked him, more repulsive than his own. The only thing alive on her was her hair, with no trace of grey in it.

"You can't look at my face," the crone reproached him. "Yet you want to be looked at. Why is that?"

 _A woods witch,_ the Hound thought.

"I…" He found it extremely difficult to pronounce the truth in response to that question. Yet he sensed that anything less would not avail him. This crone demanded it more than he ever had. Flames streaming from oil burned higher in her lamp. Rage stirred in the Hound's guts. Who was she to ask him anything?

"I am more than my scars," he finally said with disdain for the inopportune woman. "I know I am."

"Good," she said. "I know that I am more than my old age and I act like that. Why don't you?"

There was no simple answer to that. Because it was easier, probably, to act threatening and pretend to be rabid, and his path had already been difficult enough. It had not been exactly easy to become a man-at-arms at twelve. Yet he had never complained about his life. He grabbed what little joy he could have, endured through the less joyful parts, and that was all.

He tried to be a good dog to the masters who had taken the runaway pup into their kennels and fed him, in payment of that debt. His obedience was scorched by the green curse of wildfire, never to return.

He had learned from his mistakes. He was never meant to be a good dog, nor the rabid one by choice as his brother.

He was a wild dog and he wanted a pretty, well-mannered wolf for his companion. The wild dogs roamed freely just like the wolf packs. They were not fond of kennels. He had told as much with less words to the little she-wolf in the riverlands.

"I tried to make her see I was more than my face," he finally answered the crone. "I failed."

"What makes you think you are worthy of finding the lady that you seek?"

The Hound understood who the woman must be.

"I am still dreaming," he said with conviction, "and you are in my head. So you must know without me telling you that there is only one thing I can say to myself about that. One reason why I might deserve to find her while I am no better than any other man."

"Me in your head? Are you ill? I'm just an old woman. And any old woman would tell you the same. You mentioned yourself there was a lady. And you _are_ looking for her whether you say so or not. Why else risk your neck to climb here? There are no treasures left and I watched you since you arrived. You are not here to rob. So it must be for a woman, what else?"

The Hound didn't climb to the Eyrie to listen to morality sermons of what he should do. For that he could have stayed on the Quiet Isle.

"Bugger off, will you crone?" he snarled ferociously.

The woman laughed hoarsely, not threatened in the least.

"Same yourself, child" she said peevishly, and sauntered out of the room with her lamp held high. "I still have work to do tonight. The lords will return at dawn."

 _Child?_ The Hound was furious. Yet he could have been the crone's grandson in all honesty. She was much older than the man who had stolen everything from him in the Sky.

Sandor walked to the window and leaned on the balustrade. The world outside was slowly becoming less dark. The new winter day would be as pristinely beautiful as the one when he had climbed up to the Eyrie.

Yet his thoughts could not be more somber. He gripped the balustrade until his knuckles paled from the mounting tension. Stone remained unyielding, remained stone. He could not crush it into pieces for it was stronger than it looked.

_Just like you, Sansa..._

_Do you hate me?_

It was a serious possibility. He had never been more out of his mind than that night when he had crept into her bed. She must know how close he had come to hurting her, more than anyone else had until then. She must. And the most pitiful thing of all was that he preferred if she hated him than if she had forgotten all about him since he left. That possibility frightened him the most.

As on the night when the sky burned green, hot tears streamed down his face, wettening both the ridges and the crevices Gregor gave him and his good cheek. They dropped out of the window and watered the clouds. He wondered if they would reach the floor of the Vale. The waterfall he could hear roaring on the western shoulder of the mountain never did. _Alyssa's Tears,_ he remembered the name of the ghost torrent. _Some place I found for crying._

Sandor sniffed, feeling ridiculous.

Alyssa Arryn never cried in her life for her dead husband and sons so the gods condemned her to do it after, until her tears fell to the valley floor, far below the clouds circling the Eyrie and they had not done so for six thousand years.

 _She'll cry forever._ _A stupid story. At least the only knights in it are the dead ones._

The Hound wouldn't cry forever. He ought to stop remembering. But not before he answered the crone's question of why he might deserve to find Sansa for himself.

He didn't know what he would have done, what he could have done if Sansa didn't sing to him. He wished to believe he would have either left or forced her to leave the city with him but not done anything else. The Hound killed in one blow. The fact he _paused_ and _twiddled_ with a dagger on her throat, and asked her to _sing_ for her life was not like him at all.

He reminded himself of the only certainty, the only truth he could undoubtedly state about that night, the worst night in his life. He had her pinned on her bed, pressed his knife against her throat, but he didn't rape her and he didn't murder her. Somehow he was able to decide against it. Somehow, in his depravity, he was still able to choose.

_I didn't do it._

_I didn't do it._

_I didn't do it, Sansa. I didn't._

_It has to count for something._

Sandor wiped away his tears until both parts of his face were fully dry.

He wished so hard his last dream of her were real. He wished to live in a different world; where wetness between him and Sansa was neither blood nor his tears.

xxxxxx

The winch chain grated when the Hound finally returned to the cellars. Pink dawn coloured the Eyrie in maidenly shyness. The links slid slightly up and down as if someone down in the Sky was trying to turn the chain by hand, wanting the contraption to start working. _The lords are coming back?_

_For whom was the cheeky old servant waiting?_

He stepped onto the frozen oxen carcasses and tried to push the winch. He could barely move it. He invested more effort into it. The winch turned, once, twice, painfully so. His wounded arm hurt. His bad leg throbbed as when he had dedicated himself to grave digging. The hard labour had one advantage; it would keep him warm. Sandor struggled to keep turning the device, doing oxen's work. Every turn was easier after he managed to set the winch into movement, until a large wooden basket appeared before his eyes. Two heads were visible in it, both of them dark of hair.

The basket glided in through the opening in the cellars, much as the Hound had clambered into the Eyrie the previous morning.

"Sansa," he breathed out.

Her dress was plain and brown under a heavy fur cloak and cap, and there was a new ease and bravery in her measured, prudent movements. Sansa stepped out of the basket with a simplicity proper of a great lady, and immediately helped the child out; the little Arryn whelp who had grown in size, though he looked as sickly as ever. _A miracle he still lives._

Only then did she look at Sandor.

It took her a great effort to school her features in guileless perfection, he could tell. He didn't know if it was a good or a bad sign.

_You know me, Sansa. Very well._

The boy noticed him too. _How old is he now? Ten?_ His hands were too small for his age and they trembled as if he were as old as that crone haunting the Eyrie.

"Is he like the Winged Knight? He must have flown up the Giant's Lance. How else can he be here?" The little lord asked of Sansa, in all evidence more witless than ever. He should have been old enough to remember the Hound from his time at court when Jon Arryn was Hand, yet the boy's brains apparently did not follow the growth of his body and extremely long, glossy brown hair.

"Maybe," Sansa conceded carefully. "Only a _true_ knight would have been sent to us by the gods in order to help us in our need. Is it not so?"

The Hound could tell that she tried to direct him a question, hidden in the insipid talk about the gods, but her meaning escaped him. All he could do was stare at her.

_It is you, Sansa. It is you._

_Dark hair or not._

He could almost sing some happy tavern tune from joy if Gregor hadn't burned his voice with his face. Yet his features betrayed no emotion as so many times in court. Besides, he very much doubted Sansa had developed a taste for tavern songs since she had fled from the capital.

"Winged Knight was a true knight, the greatest one of all," the boy said petulantly. "He belonged to a race of giants and his wife was a child of the forest. Alayne, you told me the story many times. And this man here is tall as a giant _._ "

The boy had him in that last statement, Sandor was forced to agree. For the rest he was of a mind to gag his lordship and tie him up in one of the less slanted famous sky cells of the Eyrie until he finished talking to Sansa.

She was taller, prettier than he remembered her if that was at all possible and _brown_ -haired, just like the frozen lock he was wearing on his arm. _Is it truly yours, Sansa? Have you been going up and down this mountain?_

"What brings you here?" she tried again, in that cold, courtly voice of hers he dreaded. The voice he well deserved.

 _You didn't call me ser, nor lord,_ he realised with renewed hope. _How improper._

His heart pounded at the thought. Did she remember his hatred for both titles?

Sandor had come so far only to speak to Sansa. But now that he found her, he discovered he could not say a word.

 _I am no craven,_ he reaffirmed the truth angrily for himself.

 _I_ _never have been._

_And I haven't lost the belly for fighting._

"My lady," he began, fighting the burning feeling in his throat, threatening to stifle his low voice.

 _Fear,_ he realised. _I fear her reaction._

"I have travelled from afar," he rasped as impassively as he could force himself to be. "I could not find peace in any place, nor in anyone's service until I spoke to you, Lady Sansa."

It occurred to him that the words he said could have been spoken by some buggering _true_ knight if they existed, yet the burned voice and the ugly face were his own, just like the yearning which consumed his soul.

"Why is he calling you Sansa? The bad knight sent by the evil Queen Cersei who killed your father called you by that same name," the boy was curious.

It was some new gossip the Hound did not know nor cared to understand. A lot of intrigues must have gone by in the realm while he was on the Quiet Isle. He would speak now.

His old confidence was back and in her presence, he felt as arrogant as ever.

Before her eyes he had always felt strong.

"I love you," he threw his confession brutally at Sansa, just like he had once offered to kill anyone who would hurt her. His deep voice lowered to the limits of hearing. "I have loved you for years."

He said it all and he told it true.

And by her stiff spine and bewildered expression, Sandor knew beyond doubt that Sansa did not only recognise, but also remembered him...

He grinned wildly, insolently, not caring how ugly the expression made him.

It was a beginning.

Her eyes had gone wild as his smile, and they never left his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> I value all feedback.
> 
> I am sorry about slow updates.


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, TopShelfCrazy, for beta reading this story.
> 
> Any mistakes left, as well as any choices regarding the content of this story that you may or may not like are my own.
> 
> This story being based on book canon, it continues from the end of DwD, and it includes in its premises the preview of Sansa's WoW chapter that GRRM had on his website, some time before the show season in which Sansa/Ramsay occured... In that excerpt, as you all know, she's still in the Vale, more confident and less afraid of men (to the point of flirting on purpose), and she's happily organising a tourney in the Gates of the Moon for Robin's guard of Winged Knights.

"He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak," Sansa Stark, ASOIAF

**Nine**

The Hound had never paid much attention to the songs, yet he had heard them nonetheless. Gregor did not burn his hearing; only his voice and one of his ears.

In the songs, great, highborn ladies blushed when the handsome, true knights confessed their love for them. Then the knights kissed them; a pretty word to say they fucked them, and the songs mostly ended. The singers never said if the ladies kissed or fucked their knights back.

 _That would be_ _improper_ , _wouldn't it?_ the Hound sneered in his head.

The pretty verses were often changed into far less gallant ones when red-blooded men sang them in taverns, leaving no doubt as to the knights' true intentions.

Sandor Clegane was not handsome. And he was most certainly not a knight, true or otherwise. Yet his only love had been a great lady, and she did colour prettily at his confession; a heroine from songs she'd once loved so well made flesh and blood.

_Do you love them still?_

_And that after all this time, wedded and bedded,_ Sandor thought in disbelief, seeing Sansa becoming all rosy and flustered, but he did not attempt to kiss her. He just drank in the incredibly wild and insistent stare she was giving him and he was about to laugh at her as he so often did before…

If only Sansa had not fainted, freezing him in place.

"Sansa!" he cried out hoarsely and leapt forward. His delayed gesture did _nothin_ g to prevent her fall. She collapsed more silently than the grass was growing. Her pretty head hit the dirty floor of the cellar just before he scooped her into his arms. In a fight, he might have died or suffered a grievous wound in that instant it took him to respond.

Sandor had never expected _this._ Truth be told, he had never imagined what she would do or say. He'd never thought that _far._ He only needed to see her and unburden his soul. What came after did not matter.

Except that now, it did, terribly so. He was… weakened. He was starving. He needed her to look at him again, with that avid, shaken expression she'd just given him; a source of unexpected, pure joy for the dog's wicked heart.

"Sansa!" he rasped, almost softly.

She was pliable in his arms, a bundle of soft wool and fur with the unmistakable body of a woman.

_Is it so unimaginable, my lady, that I would love you so? I suppose this truth has never crossed your mind. Guess what, it didn't cross mine either until all I had was good and done for._

_See, another lie, just there._

_I never had_ _anything_ _._

Though that was perhaps true for anyone, and at any time, in the world ruled by the strong. The strong of today were the corpses of tomorrow.

_The Stranger takes us all._

His anger at Sansa flared up suddenly, killing all his joy. To think she would love him… Did he truly think of that? He had to admit to himself that he did and had... Knowing that she would _never_ love him. And he… he… He didn't want her gratitude. He didn't want scraps… He had had enough of that from the Lannisters.

In his truth-fuelled fury he remembered the only other time he had seen Sansa faint; when they cut off her father's head, and only _after_ the brave deed had been done. His rage dampened instantly. To know that she didn't pass out on just any occasion, like some ladies from the court, lifted his spirit again. _Have I shocked you as much as Joffrey did with his notion of justice?_

_Do you hate me, Sansa?_

_Do I frighten you still?_

He would stay with her until he found out. Or longer, if she wanted him. _Forever and ever._ Wasn't that the ending of some songs? He didn't recall nor did he wish to.

He was in the Eyrie with Sansa and that was all that mattered.

"You have to turn the winch again," the boy commanded him in a shrill, high-pitched tone. His voice was changing to a man's voice, a year or two too early, perhaps. "The servants also have to return up here with us. The Lord Royce said so. I didn't even break my fast before he said Alayne and I were to leave. Who will cook and clean?"

"I won't, to be sure," the Hound told Robert Arryn, remembering the boy's existence and presence with great difficulty. "Go, die of hunger and dipped in your own shit, if it please you. At least I won't have to listen to your ugly croaking. You call yourself a falcon? You are a lowly sparrow at best."

The boy's hands began shaking. His deranged, childish anger, matched the Hound's dangerous one in his shrieking madness. "And you are no Winged Knight!" the boy bleated pitifully in his siffling, breaking voice. "You are uglier than me! And you made Alayne ill!"

His lordship had the right of it, all of it, but the Hound would never admit to any of it.

"Boy," Sandor said dryly, decided to be much clearer than before. He was apparently not well understood from the beginning.

"Shut up!" he bellowed.

Intimidation did not work.

 _Nothing_ ever worked in his life, or not as it did for anyone else.

Jon Arryn's son kept prattling, undeterred. "It is _cold_ here," the boy said petulantly, gesturing at the dead oxen and other unliving contents of his own cellar; wooden crates and jars with stuff the Hound had never bothered to check. "I want _fire_. I want Alayne awake. I want Maester Colemon to prepare warm milk for me."

Sansa's _brown_ hair tickled the beardless portion of the Hound's puckered chin and the protruding jaw bone, reminding him he should do something to help her. He instinctively turned her so that her head was now resting under the unburnt part of his face. _She had always walked on my good side,_ he remembered. _She had never given me her arm when I accompanied her. And she did give it to Arys Oakheart._

Yet with Sansa in his arms, his memory lacked its usual bitterness, appearing like an old forgotten squabble from his youth or childhood.

He looked out, through the window of the cellar. It began to snow. The flakes were pretty; pure, white crystals descending on the white castle from the light blue sky.

The world was less awful today than the day before.

"I even want Lord Petyr, Mother's husband," the boy drooled on. "But the white knight has just murdered him."

_So Littlefinger is dead._

"Why do you call Sansa Alayne?" the Hound asked in all seriousness, deciding to learn what he could, since the boy would probably not stop talking unless he killed him, and Sansa might not like this when she woke.

"That _is_ her name. She is Lord Petyr's natural daughter."

"Natural my arse," the Hound said flatly. "And this white knight, how did he look?" _Meryn? Boros? One of those Kettleblacks? Some new bugger they named after I left? But why would any of them kill Littlefinger as a side business?_ This did not sound like something Cersei would order. Last thing the Hound had heard, she was Queen Regent and Tommen played at being king.

"He had a snow white armour and a snow white horse," the sickly boy exhaled prettily, putting his long brown hair behind his ears, dreaming he was that knight, more like than not. "He rode to the Gates of the Moon with a small army and demanded my cousin be delivered to him, Sansa Stark. Alayne was very afraid. But Lord Baelish reassured her that he would make the army leave for Saltpans or for Riverrun looking for my cousin. He said Alayne had nothing to fear."

"I guess Lord Baelish was wrong for once," the Hound assumed aloud.

"The white knight sent him back to Lord Royce in a bag. My bannermen wouldn't let me see his remains! Me, their lord!" The boy seethed with indignation from being left out of something a child should rather not see from the sound of it. On this, the Hound could understand the lordling's anger. He never saw a point in hiding death from children. Most would see it soon enough.

"No one has seen the white knight's face. But he was taller than you, I think," Lord Arryn observed thoughtfully as his final opinion on the matter, after eyeing the Hound up and down with a mixture of childlike curiosity, irritating haughtiness and open contempt.

_Taller than me._

Unless the extinct giants had suddenly appeared in the Vale, there was only one man in Westeros taller than Sandor and he was supposed to be dead.

His right arm itched to hold a greatsword and his guts wished this to be true. He would finally _kill_ Gregor if it was.

But there was a woman in his arms instead of cold steel. She needed a featherbed and a fire, not his smouldering thoughts of vengeance.

"Do you have a bed, boy? A good one, a lordly one," he rasped, almost calm, forcing himself to address his miserable host as sweetly as he could. "Let us lay _Alayne_ in your bed, shall we? Your lordship will surely have the best bed in this castle?"

"Of course," the boy agreed. "I have all the _best._ I'll show you."

 _Or that is what everyone tells you,_ the Hound thought. _They said the same to Joff and see how he ended. Choked on his wedding pie._

He imagined himself choking at his own wedding and he could not. Unwillingly, what he could see clearly was Sansa, brown-haired and grown as she was now in his embrace, covered in his cloak.

 _As if she could ever marry me even if she so wanted._ His treacherous thoughts of wanting Sansa to love him back had never gone as far as marriage yet. The world would not change. He was born a second son of a minor house. He could not take a daughter of any of the great houses to wife.

The Hound followed the petulant lordling to the courtyard. The boy's castle was being devoured softly by snow. By the evening, maybe, and by the next morning for certain, it would be impossible to walk from one tower to another if it kept falling.

_We will be buried alive._

They climbed into a tower the Hound hadn't visited before, belonging to the falcon lords of old and their spouses.

Their bedchamber was a very spacious, cold room. The four poster bed in it was so large that four normal-sized men could easily fit in it, and there would still be place left. The Hound lay Sansa under the blankets and the furs, which were fortunately left in place, unlike in some other rooms he had seen emptied and covered for winter. He turned to leave.

The little lord had seemingly ran out of words. He was presently shaking at the door of his own bedchamber which dwarfed him. He gave Sandor a look that pleaded for some purpose.

"If _you_ are a real lord and a future knight like the buggering Winged one," the Hound told him very seriously, "you will stay here and guard the lady's rest. You will not climb into her bed and sleep like a little baby. If she wakes, you will cry out and call for me as hard as you can."

Sandor went to make some use of the day. Sansa might be awake soon, but he would not wait at her bedside for that. He needed to exert his body. The eternal hours of standing guard in the past only served to make him more observant and angry than he already was by nature. Fighting was good for him; he remained strong and thought less from it. In the absence of arms on the Quiet Isle, he found that digging graves or just about any labour was better than sitting idle.

There should be a shovel in any cellar and he was not wrong in that. He cleaned the path from the tower of the lords to the cellars, and as an afterthought also to the tower where he had cried; the one looking at the waterfall.

After, he found some horrible dried flakes for porridge he recognised from his time in a septry without remembering their name. A pot, three bowls and spoons, a broken piece of a frozen oxen carcass, flint and steel and some firewood, completed the hoard he carried back in a large wicker basket to where his shocked love slept.

Robert Arryn, named for the fat and vigorous King Robert, First of His Name, was the skinniest and the weakest highborn boy the Hound had ever seen. Presently he was shivering worse than before, but he remained a true little would-be knight. He didn't move from his place. The bedding was perfectly smoothed on the empty half of the great bed and Sansa had not stirred. The Hound was pleased with the sickly boy. He hit him on the shoulder in sign of recognition.

"Good boy," he said, "you will make a fine killer one day. Maybe I will take you to squire. Would you like that?" It was an empty offer since the future Warden of the East would never squire for Sandor Clegane, but the boy _beamed_ at it.

 _Every boy dreams of being a knight in this bloody land._ Sandor remembered himself; a stupid child who'd wanted the wooden knight, and immediately made himself forget all about it. He was a man now.

Making fire was an easy task as was preparing porridge with warmed up water from melted snow. The boy refused to eat at first, calling the result disgusting, but he swallowed everything after the Hound did, hunger munching on his lordly pride.

Sandor let the frozen meat in the pot near the fire. They would cook it or roast it on the morrow.

"You are a good servant," Robert Arryn said earnestly.

The Hound chuckled at the observation. "A good dog," he agreed and finally allowed himself to return all his attention to Sansa. His day was done now.

She breathed peacefully in her sleep. Seeing her like this made him feel as though he was never going to be angry again. Maybe he could lay down now for a while, the bed _was_ large enough.

On a second thought, it might not be prudent if the first thing Sansa saw when she woke was _him_ sleeping in her bed. He didn't want her to remain shocked forever.

A noble knight would lay his sword between himself and his lady to preserve her honour, but that would be even less appropriate in the case at hand, Sandor estimated, viewing the truth from all angles.

_I did put my blade on her throat._

_Twice._

That left only one possibility.

"Boy!" he growled, "Take off all your winter clothes and lay in bed."

Miraculously, it was the first command the said boy obeyed without any questioning and complaining on the side. Doubtlessly, Lord Arryn would make a terrible fosterling and an even worse squire.

The Hound added more wood to the fire, not too little, not too much.

It wouldn't do for the fire to go out during the cold winter night, nor for the bedding to _catch_ fire as his dead father had said, justifying the amusement of his eldest son and heir. When Sandor was satisfied with the build-up of the flames in the hearth, he left the wet rags he'd been wearing near it, stretching them on the floor to dry. Very silently, he crept into the bed next to the little lord…. who was snuggled up next to Sansa's teat, as a babe ready to suck on his mother's breast.

Sandor pulled the boy back by the shoulders, forcing him away from the lady. "She is _not_ your mother," he said. "Your mother is dead." The boy collapsed wordlessly back to sleep, curled up in himself.

Sansa exhaled evenly, resting. Breathing, breathing, breathing. _She must wake soon,_ the Hound told himself. _There is no other way._

_What if she... died?_

Great ladies could die of broken heart, in the songs. Just like old men could die while bedding a woman, the Hound had heard nasty jokes about the latter.

 _I only scared her again,_ he told himself. _I never broke her heart._

Content about that truth, Sandor closed his eyes. He would keep them so only for a little while, he decided. Behind closed eyelids, scents invaded him. He hadn't shared a bed with anyone for a lifetime. His mother took him to her bed once when he was very little and cried at night, from wetting his sheets, but the memory was so old now that it was almost unreal. He was warmer than he had been in days, warmer than on the Quiet Isle; it could well be he was warmer than ever...

In what seemed as only moments later, the Hound blinked the sleep away and felt cold metal on his throat.

"I can take the knife from your hands and twist it into your witless guts, boy," he threatened with unseeing eyes and cold hatred in his voice. "Best believe it."

But in the next instant, when he wanted to do good on his threat, if only to _scare_ the boy properly as he should have done from the beginning, he found that he could not.

He was tied to the bed, very thoroughly so by the feel of it; arms and legs spread in a shape of a four-pointed star. If he trashed left and right with all his strength, he _might_ be able to turn the bed over on his attacker, and possibly slice his own throat open in the course of that action.

He stilled.

Next, he chuckled madly, with care not to move his head and neck overmuch. His eyes almost teared from all-pervasive mirth. His laughter was convulsive and his head jerked involuntarily. His throat immediately pricked from skin being peeled, dripping blood, more like than not.

He became very still.

He slowly began opening his eyes. As soon as they were wide-open and wild, a fear he had never known seized his guts. And not of his own death, never that. Stranger was his oldest, most trusted friend. Maybe his only friend.

Sansa held a knife at his throat with two firm hands. Her face was a cold, white mask she would wear to the court and to another beating on Joffrey's orders.

_Have you heard about Saltpans, Sansa? About that girl of eleven or twelve whose breasts I supposedly ate because raping her wasn't enough for a beast like me?_

_Do you believe it?_

That would surely explain her actions. He didn't care if the entire Westeros thought he was the butcher of Saltpans. Well, maybe a little. Just as he never liked the bloody _Imp_ to call him _dog,_ not truly, for all his love of dogs _._ But to think that Sansa believed him guilty of torturing and burning Saltpans irked him beyond measure. _Do you not know better?_

_You've always known me better than most._

_Better than anyone._

_But you don't know that, do you? How can you?_

_How could you possibly know..._

Because the only girl of eleven or twelve the Hound ever came close to hurting was Sansa herself. That knowledge irked him even more.

"Go ahead," he said with resignation. "Kill me. You wanted to kill us both before, when I caught you on the serpentine stair. Might be you'll succeed today."

"What did the queen promise you? Gold? A royal pardon? Me?" Sansa's angry voice echoed shrilly from the cold, white walls of the bedchamber, quivering only at the last word.

_You wouldn't want that, would you? That they give you to me?_

_As if they would ever do that._

Lord Tywin believed in feeding his dogs bones under the table, not in seating them beside him. It was perhaps the only lesson his grandson Joffrey had ever learned for him. Servants were servants and dogs were dogs. For as much as it amused Joff to order his men to beat and undress Sansa, he would have never given her to any of them. Not even with continuous torture on his mind. She was only Joffrey's, to do with her as it pleased him, day after day.

"The queen means to kill me this time," Sansa informed Sandor. "To cut my head off."

"I haven't seen Cersei since the last time I saw you. You must know that as well as I," he said in a rasp as firm and steady as her two little hands holding the knife on him.

"A dog will die for you, but never lie to you," Sansa continued in pure, unfeigned rage. "Wasn't that a lie like everything else since I left Winterfell? You show up in the Eyrie on the same day as the queen's men, claiming _you_ love me and you expect me to believe you? To jump into your arms and go back down with you? I am not that _stupid._ What you love is _killing!_ And no one crosses the Mountains of the Moon on his own these days. The clans would have killed _you_ if you came by yourself."

Yet her eyes never left his throat where a few drops of his blood must have been drawn from by her knife when he had laughed, and he could swear she was not completely at ease with her own doing, thorough as it was.

No one had ever caught him off guard quite this way. Never when he was sober.

_I must be drunk on you, Sansa._

"Dogs can lie as anyone else," he answered her question truthfully. "And I always knew I would die for someone. Why not for you? You are much prettier than Joff."

The blade on his throat hesitated, but it did not depart. He could move his head left and right, and up and down, very little. In a corner of an eye, he saw the boy skulking next to the hearth, sidling to hide from the Hound, looking all clever and lordly.

"You knew," the Hound realised.

"You were the sworn shield to the crown prince," the boy recited. "Everyone was afraid of you. I sometimes thought of you when I imagined my famous ancestor, the Winged Knight. He was a giant. You were the only one I thought tall enough at court."

The Hound could not believe his ears. He had never looked twice at Lord Arryn's boy back then. Yes, he knew of his existence and that was all. To hear he was an example of _anything_ in his eyes was unthinkable. Another question surged in his mind, first time ever.

_What did Joff all see in me? Was I an example to him when he thought of humiliating Sansa? And not only for killing her father and calling it mercy..._

Anger saved him from further thinking. _Sansa_ never fainted, did she? She was lying to him to save herself. She must have been.

"And you were only pretending to be sleeping," he growled wholeheartedly at Sansa and against the knife on his throat.

"For a while, yes," Sansa said simply, unafraid. "I woke when you carried me in here. Sweetrobin helped me when you left us."

Sandor let his eyes sink downwards as much as he could without the free movement of the head that should have followed his gaze, suddenly aware of the undress of his body, stripped to ragged smallclothes and a colourless tunic he left on for sleeping in winter. Sansa's eyes wandered over his naked legs, and returned to his face, unwavering. He suddenly wished he wore armour and thus escaped her prying eyes.

"You couldn't have come up here by yourself," she judged him firmly, stiffly, _honourably,_ just as her late father once sentenced Gregor to die.

 _Lord Hand, dead Hand_ , the Hound thought with indifference.

_So many dead since the murder of Jon Arryn._

Sansa spoke more to convince herself than him, it seemed. "It is impossible. The tunnel leading from the Sky to the Eyrie is blocked. The winch can't be turned from downside, just as Lord Royce first thought. It must be a trap. You must have a company of men hidden somewhere here, who helped you clean out the passage to arrive here from the Sky and then fill it with rubble again."

"What you say is ridiculous," he spat at her. "Besides, didn't you send the boy to take a look around? This castle is not so large."

She didn't. The boy ran out now to take that look, unbidden. The Hound laughed when he was left alone with Sansa. It was beyond him how she and her cousin were still alive. _Servants,_ he forgot. _That is the way of it._ The highborns always had dogs, bigger and smaller ones; more and less rabid. He sank into stubborn silence.

"Sansa, there isn't anyone," the boy said when he returned, face red from the cold.

It was the first time he didn't call Sansa Alayne, Sandor noticed.

"But how did you do it then?" her pretty blue eyes were at a loss now, demanding the _truth_ from Sandor.

"The chain," he said, wishing every trace of mockery out of his burnt voice.

"You… you climbed up the chain," Sansa said with something akin to awe. "Like my little brother Bran might have done… when he could still walk… when he was still alive…" Her pretty blue eyes became all watery and she looked away.

She looked _north,_ he realised, completely forgetting him.

"Aren't you… aren't you too heavy for that?" she remembered he was there after a long while, regaining her breath and her composure.

Maybe he was. He had never thought about it before attempting the climb.

"It would seem not," he said curtly.

Her gaze roamed all over him now, measuring, comparing; in a detailed, dispassionate appraisal he had seen in seamstresses on a few occasions he'd been forced to visit those at court. He could almost feel the vividness of her look on his skin, or under it, just as in that last ungodly dream of her he had when they were naked together. His body reacted the way he didn't want it to. Not now. Not like this. It shamed him and yet why not? Why shouldn't she see it? She was no innocent. She knew by now love was more than just words. Perhaps that was all it ever was. Her eyes stopped just _there_ before returning to his face again. Her cheeks were rosy again, from youth and health or… Gratification? He couldn't help thinking his body was maybe more to her taste than the Imp's.

_Aye, dog. Or simply uglier and much more dangerous._

She withdrew her left hand from the hilt of the knife to her lap and he could see she had forced herself not to wring it. She sat stiffly at the edge of the bed, upright as a long tourney lance leaned on the wall.

"Will you keep me like this forever?" he asked, feigning boredom.

That did it.

She released the knife she had been steadily holding in her right hand against his throat; a kitchen one, rather than a proper weapon, designed to slice onion into rings, rather than flesh and bone into shreds. Fortunately for Sandor, the blade was not half as sharp as it could have been.

He remained tied to the bed and Sansa began crying.

He looked at his ankles, now that it was safe to move his head, because he couldn't see his wrists. He was tied with long leather straps that had a stable looks to them. Except that the work done on them was a finery, with little moons and falcons here and there. _From the boy's pony then. Or some pitiful horse he can ride in his courtyard and think himself a knight._ The leather was of best quality; he could not tear it apart.

 _Sansa has put reins_ _on me._

He laughed again. He was in the Eyrie with Sansa and what she did to him was meticulous and clever.

None of this was a lie. It was what she thought she ought to do.

"Stop your bloody crying," he said, rougher than he intended to.

She wept more and more noisily, _sniffing_ in the sleeve of her brown gown.

He had to think of something witty or very ugly to say, to pierce through the haze of her teary mood; something she would hear.

"The boy says that this knight Cersei sent to get you is taller than me," he rasped, almost snarling.

She may have looked at him through her tears, but they still kept falling. She turned to look at the boy, who nodded briefly.

"Do you seriously believe _I_ would ever ride as a good dog in any party led by my brother? I have run away from it as a child. I swore myself to the Lannisters for two reasons. The first one was, their servants serve only the Lannisters and not their bannermen. I would _never_ serve under Gregor. Not then, not now. I'd rather die."

"But… Ser Gregor is dead."

It was unbelievable how after everything Sansa had seen in her young years, she still didn't omit calling Gregor _ser_. Her rotting septa would have been proud of her. He felt the need to mock her and decided against it. Gregor was a ser, no doubt. That was Rhaegar Targaryen's fault, not Sansa's. There was no reason to scorn her for it.

"Or do you know another _knight_ in the realm who is taller than me?" he asked instead.

"No, but-"

"They just _lied_ Gregor died from the poison. And sent Prince Doran Martell a big, ugly head of somebody else's brother. Doesn't that sound to _you_ like something the Lannisters could do? Old Tywin, his lovely daughter and the Imp?"

"And what other sworn brother of the Kingsguard would spit on all titles and kill an illustrious overlord of the riverlands and the Vale, and a former member of the small council, because he tried to, what, _talk_ him out of doing Cersei's killing? Meryn? Boros? Cersei's latest lover? What was his name, Blackkettle? I don't think so."

"You," Sansa said with conviction.

"True," the Hound was forced to agree, "but I am done with that."

"Why have you come after me then?" she asked.

"I think I told you," he reminded her brusquely. "Don't make me say it again."

_I do love you._

But the moment when he could say it was gone and he was loath to repeat it.

She gave him that bewildered look, a very short one and _smiled_.

He hadn't seen her smile for so long. She had stopped smiling freely when they murdered her father.

He tried to yank his arms free but the knots and the leather finery were holding. He remembered the sewing basket on the little table in Sansa's room in King's Landing. He always assumed she had it just for the looks of it, but maybe the girl could effectively do something with her hands. The thought sent his dog mind spiralling through the sinuous passages of desire, fuelled as never before by being helpless. He had no choice but to wait. He imagined she would use him, just as he was now, restrained and at her mercy, to get her pleasure from his body. It was almost too much to consider. That way she wouldn't have to go near his scars. But she would still have to look at him if she kept her eyes open while bedding a man and he… He would see all of her. It would be too damn good, he knew. He'd never done it that way before. A woman tried something like this once, but he thought nothing of it and changed position to one he knew. But now, now...

He closed his eyes.

In the safety and simmering anger of his mind, he forced his arousal to disappear before he truly embarrassed himself, by thinking about the swiftest way a full body armour could be fastened. There was nothing more mind-dulling than that.

Slowly, he reopened his eyes and began studying the girl in front of him; calm of body, but hungry in his soul. He felt ridiculous once more. And in place of becoming angry with her or with the world, he just loved her more.

"Do you know," she said, stuttering. "All this... Me... You," she gestured at the darkness, outside. "Winter. The castle hung in the sky… Your words to me. I thought this existed only in the tales."

"So did I," he answered without thinking. "So did I, Sansa, best believe it."

"Yet you are here. _You_. You left me nothing but a bloody cloak!"

It was the strangest accusation he had heard in his life. And contrary to his habit of letting all believe whatever in seven hells they wanted of him, Sandor felt the need to defend himself.

Just that, he didn't know from what or how.

"Sansa!" the boy hurled, saving the Hound the pain of thinking what he should say. They had somehow forgotten all about him. His body was shaking in uncontrolled spasms near the hearth, a hundred times worse than before. Sansa left the Hound's side to take him in her arms while the lordling tried to grope her and feed from her breasts again. Sandor could not miss the wrinkled look of disgust on her face.

Which _was_ missing when she looked at him, moments earlier.

"Sweetsleep, I need sweetsleep," she muttered to herself nervously, as though she were alone. As if Sandor wasn't there.

"Are you mad?" he protested vehemently. _Gregor_ was drinking milk of the poppy. _To be stronger_ , he said. It only made him madder, Sandor thought. Once he asked Grand Maester Pycelle about it and the old man agreed. Since then, the Hound only drank wine or strongwine when he was wounded and needed to sleep it over, never poppy.

"He can die," Sansa whimpered.

"He will die from sweetsleep as well," Sandor said. "You will be the first one to blame now that Littlefinger is not here. They know or they think they know how you poisoned Joffrey. Why not him?"

"I did not poison Joffrey," Sansa said sternly.

"I never said you did, did I?"

Lord Arryn was slight but still too heavy for Sansa to hold him in her arms as a newborn babe. His spasms subsided from the warmth of her body, it seemed.

"Untie me, woman!" he commanded. "Now!" She never made a move to help him.

"Please," he said, remembering his courtesies. Once, long ago, he had to learn them as well. He had never bothered to use them. _Much._

The Hound ended up holding a shaking body of the boy for at least an hour, maybe more, until the erratic movement had completely stopped. And despite Sansa's fears, he didn't die. He just fell asleep. Sandor placed the little lordling bugger in the middle of the bed.

"There," he said, empty of hands and of heart.

He moved to leave the room.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"You don't want me in your bedchamber. Or do you?"

"This is the bedchamber of the Arryns," she said, avoiding both his avid eyes and the answer to his question. She had been eating cold _porridge_ he had made before and the realisation made him... Proud...

The sickly boy in bed was old enough to be his son. In the warm red light coming from the hearth, his brown hair looked black enough. It was rather dark in the chamber now, and Sandor's latest delusion was almost complete; he, his wife and their son.

Except that Sansa was far too young to be little lord's mother and he never considered fathering a child. Or marrying. Or living long enough to do either.

And though he had never moved to touch her since she had released him, for the first time since he'd found her, Sandor noticed Sansa was afraid of him.

"What? I won't-" he began his defense

"-Kill you-you won't kill me," they said together.

He wondered how many times he had threatened to kill her before. They fell silent for a while, looking at the sparkling embers of the fire.

"Would you.. would you just…" her voice was tremulous now, invoking the precious memories he had of her frightened innocence in the Red Keep. "Would you lay down and fall asleep first?"

He thought of something… _helpful?_

"Do you want to tie me again?" he offered.

Speechless, she shook her head and stared at his throat. He pressed his own finger to it and wiped away the last traces of blood. He looked at the fingertip to confirm his assumption; he had made worse while shaving. He thought Sansa might ask for his pardons for cutting him there, but she never did. And if the sight of his blood disgusted her, she never showed it. She wasn't _sorry._ Yet it was clear she didn't like what she did, she merely believed it had to be done.

 _She is truly her father's daughter,_ the Hound realised _, just as Robert's councillors said about her on the kingsroad. Dead councillors of the dead king, all of them, more like than not._ The Starks killed if they thought they had to, like anyone else, yet it didn't mean they liked it. It was just as she had told him about her father, years ago.

She _would_ have killed him if she thought she ought to, he understood, considering her with newfound respect. He could always understand death.

Yet she might _cry_ after she killed him, his brain suggested further, and that, that was beyond him. Maybe it was something only women understood.

He bared both his palms and walked very slowly past Sansa, hoping his gesture was reassuring and not frightening. He shivered in his smallclothes. It had become cold in the room. The dawn would not tardy. He occupied one half of the bed next to the boy in the middle and pulled furs over his ugly head. He wanted to stay awake until the second half of the bed sagged with Sansa's _bird_ weight, compared to his own.

 _Tall for a girl,_ he mused. His being was full of new memories of Sansa while he waited for her to lay in bed next to him.

Yet just like every night since he had set on his journey to find her, the gods were cruel and they mocked him. They never gave him what he wanted, sending him only dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you AdultOrphan, Anemyra_Lynx, WTFic, papla, madisonlovesmakeup, Sillythings, SassyEggs, blueSands, Illusory, coveredincleganedna, Athena, darksister, Dragolord, cherubicwindigo, BurningDove, houndbird, Midnightdawn, tini243, Lilone1776, dirksandor, omj319, ladysnotdead for leaving a comment on slow progressing story.
> 
> Any feedback is welcome.
> 
> With this chapter, I had a choice between Sansa's POV (which would explain to you what the hell is happening in the Vale so you would not have to wonder in case you are interested in the political part) or to show how this type of Sandor reacts to this type of the situation. The first one was coming as too introspective and it would also leave you with doubts about what is in Sandor's head (as the books leave us) so I deleted it and wrote this instead.
> 
> Next part will be Sansa though and then you will know what is going on, and also, some sort of SanSan will continue, olifantically.


	10. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, TopShelfCrazy, for proof reading this particular piece of my fictional mind.
> 
> Rating is up for a reason.
> 
> The song to go with this chapter is, quite obviously, the very silent, very quiet version of Cucurrucucu paloma as performed by Caetano Veloso for the painfully beautiful Spanish film Talk to Her (Hable con ella)

"They had bound his wrists with hempen rope, strung a noose around his neck, and pulled a sack down over his head, but even so there was danger in a man." Arya Stark, about the Hound, ASOIAF

**Ten**

Father was dead.

Except that her Father had been murdered years ago, ages of the world ago; and the ambitious man killed by the new knight of the Queen Regent's Kingsguard had never been her father. Yet this man provided safety and shelter for Sansa. No one had beaten her in the Vale. No one had taken her maidenhead.

_Yet._

It would happen soon, Sansa knew, in her impending marriage to Harry the Heir. And sometimes she wondered if Littlefinger too did not have other things in mind when he asked for and took her kisses as no father should do with his daughter.

But now both friendly, reasonable Petyr Baelish and dangerous, calculating Littlefinger were gone and Sansa was equal part joyful, ashamed and afraid. Joyful because she was more afraid of Lord Baelish than of Joffrey at times, ashamed because it was awful to rejoice at someone's horrendous death and afraid because… she was repetitively told she was weak and stupid since her father died. It was probably the truth. With her family gone, it was only a matter of time before she became another man's ward and pawn.

Maybe she should give herself to this… _Ser Robert Strong…_ and return to Cersei. Her life would end swiftly on the headsman's block, as it should have happened, maybe, after they killed her true father. Yet Sansa found that right now, just like back then, she lacked courage to take the Moon Door out of her life.

And the man who now slept in her bed should have been dead as well, _was_ dead, or so she had thought, as dead as her little sister Arya, lost in the slaughter of the Stark household after Sansa had betrayed her father. One could not run away from the wrath of the crown and stay alive without _help,_ no matter how strong…

Or so she had believed… The man in her bed contraried her assumptions, as so many times before.

 _Not my bed,_ she corrected nervously her meandering thoughts. _The high bed of the Arryns._ She had never slept in it before. She avoided her aunt's room, the one she had shared with her now late lord husband.

Her _murderer._ Sansa carefully avoided the thought that she had been unwillingly the cause of her aunt's abrupt end.

Now that she saw how large this bed was first hand, it was no wonder Sweetrobin could never sleep in it all by himself after his mother's death; no wonder he wandered the corridors of the Eyrie until he found the warmth of Sansa's much smaller room. She felt sorry for all the times she had bolted her door and left her cousin to his own devices. But only a little. His pawing was repulsive, childlike or not. He would drool on her breasts if he could and she could not stand it. She could not. She might burn for it in seven hells, but she could not.

And Littlefinger who had _helped_ her, although for reasons entirely of his own, was now dead. Cersei's new knight of the Kingsguard mounted a siege to the Gates of the Moon, ruining Sansa's best efforts to stage a tourney, which would seal her betrothal and marriage to Harry the Heir.

Ser Robert Strong brought a letter with him, from the Queen Regent, saying the giant knight had sworn a sacred vow he would not leave until the lords of the Vale delivered to him Lady Sansa Stark, posing as natural daughter of Lord Petyr Baelish, Alayne Stone, who was to be trialled in the capital for the murder of King Joffrey Baratheon, First of His Name.

 _Ser Robert Strong. What kind of name is that?_ Sansa had never heard about it in her childhood lessons about the noble houses of Westeros, great and small. Yet she could not believe what the Hound had just said that the crown had simply _lied_ about the death of his brother to the _Prince_ of Dorne. Sansa was a good girl and she learned from Petyr when he acted kindly. It was one thing if the players in the game of thrones lied to poor, helpless _Sansa_ and quite another to deceive a powerful ally, or rather, an enemy.

And the ravens brought to Petyr this _other_ letter, just today... Or was it yesterday? Time slipped through her fingers, fickle as sand since the queen's men appeared demanding her head. It was foolish to believe she would ever be safe. Sansa found the letter only after Petyr had ridden to his premature death. In it, Lord _Varys_ , who no longer served Queen Regent nor her small council, it seemed, offered to send a living _dragon_ to the Vale to liberate it from the yoke of the Whore Queen, as he now called Cersei. On the condition that Sansa Stark married Prince Aegon, Sixth of His Name, the only son and heir of Rhaegar Targaryen… As his _second_ wife. His first one, Daenerys Targaryen, was barren, and thus unable to bear _heirs_ to the crown.

Sansa could be queen...

 _Second_ queen, she corrected herself.

She might be safe if she said yes.

Sansa had the letter in her bodice now, and she had not shown it to any other lord of the Vale. At all times it felt as though it _burned_ her skin with the promise of dragonfire ever since she'd laid her eyes on it.

Besides, how could she have told anyone? As soon as Littlefinger was returned in a bag, and Sansa's tummy still turned at the mere _thought_ of it, Lord Nestor Royce insisted she and Sweetrobin took shelter in the Eyrie.

"It is impregnable," he had said with shine in his old eyes. "It is best if young Lord Arryn and Lady _Stark_ wait there."

Mya Stone could not be found in time so Sansa and Robin were sent up alone, with six servants and eight mules.

When they found the tunnel in the Sky closed by the avalanche, Sansa was scared to death of going back. And when the chain began turning against all odds, after the servants stood on each other's shoulders and strived to set it in motion, she was the first one in the basket, pulling her cousin with her, before he had time for any complaints and much less for a fit.

During their flight, Sansa never questioned Lord Royce's arrangement, eager to leave in haste, but now it struck her as odd. Yes, there was not enough food left up here for more than ten people for long, but shouldn't the Lord of the Eyrie merit a better or at least _safer_ escort back up to his castle, such as Mya Stone?

What did Lord Royce hope to achieve? He said he would let the queen's men search his castle and see Sansa was not there. They would lift the siege and leave.

On the top of the mountain, in bed with the Hound and Sweetrobin who were both sound asleep, with Petyr six hundred feet below in the bag, and with the terrifying suspicion it was _Ser Gregor_ who mounted the siege, Lord Nestor's plan seemed very, very childish all of a sudden. As something old Sansa would think of. And Myranda's father was many things, but he had never struck Sansa as being simple.

Her thoughts drifted back from the conundrum Nestor Royce's actions represented to the _man_ sleeping in her bed, as they did every second moment since she dared lay down herself, completely dressed and with her bodice laced up to the point of choking. Because she was still afraid of Sandor Clegane's intentions towards her person, but also because it wouldn't do, it just wouldn't do to lose Lord Varys' letter. Somehow she doubted Lord Royce would make the necessary arrangements for her to be able to take that generous offer, should she favour it. He surely had other plans for her. She found that all men did.

There was nothing she could do about any of it right now. She was in the Eyrie and the world would have to wait. She could let her thoughts be free.

And that meant returning, every now and then, to the Hound's confession of love.

Sansa believed that a true maiden should faint at this admission from any man who wasn't her betrothed. But just like she couldn't look away or close her eyes when they killed her father, her legs did become wobbly at the Hound's ardent, utterly unexpected words, yet they remained firm, at first. She had to look at him, study him, read what was in his eyes.

He came to her dressed as a beggar this time, yet even so there was danger in him. He could snap her in two with bare hands if he so wanted, she realised, needing no headsman's sword. She had to say something and she could not find her courtesies. She knew that only the truth would avail her. She did not know what to tell him, what he wanted of her now.

What she wanted of him.

And that last thing frightened her most of all.

And from the sudden realisation he may have simply _lied_ , Sansa finally fainted, only to wake in his strong arms in the snowy courtyard of the Eyrie. She had kept her eyes closed. She knew he must have been there to take her back to the queen, yet being carried by him brought her odd joy. She didn't want to spoil it for herself before time by talking.

That morning, she had woken from the most incredible dream involving a man. _Him. Sandor Clegane. The Hound._ She could not remember it in detail any longer but she knew what it entailed.

She had known for a while _._

Sweetrobin slept firmly, it seemed. Sansa rolled him gently to the edge of the bed where she had been lying, and wrapped him in blankets and furs so that he looked more like an oversized bear cub, buried in its lair. His face was tucked in, only the tip of his head was out and he faced away from the Hound now. The boy did not move.

Sansa's faith in the gods was not as fervent as it used to be, but she prayed to them all the same, to the old and the new. _Please. Let Robin sleep… he must be exhausted from his ailment._

Sansa was tired as well, but for as much as she had tossed and turned in the great bed of the Arryns, sleep would not come. She stepped out, walked to the hearth and put a log in it, then slowly went back towards the bed.

She did not lay in the middle, between the man and the boy as she had first intended. Instead, she stood next to the man who had climbed alone and muleless all the way to the Eyrie to tell her he loved her; listening to his quiet, rhythmic breathing.

Her being danced as it had the first time that day when she had heard his words, spoken in a voice which had a power to cut her soul.

He was lying on his back. Huge hands clutched a brown fur under his chin. Head was completely visible, the good side and the bad side. Sansa stood purposefully on his ruined side now; she had avoided it before.

Daintily, she lowered herself to sit on the edge of the bed next to him. Her side touched his. He was very warm. As warm or warmer than the faceless man in her marriage bed in her dreams, who was always so much taller than her real husband, Tyrion, had any right to be.

Now, now… her throat constricted from a turmoil of emotions.

She had always wanted to be loved. And yet, now, the _first_ time a man confessed his love for her, she did not love him back. She had never felt for the burnt man in front of her eyes what she had as a young girl for Joffrey before he cut off her father's head, or for gallant Ser Loras. No, that had been a different, singing, happy love and her handsome men were not worthy of it, none of them. Joffrey was a monster and Ser Loras could have given his rose to any other lady, he had never _seen_ Sansa, only a pretty shell of herself to whom courtesies were due.

These days she would settle for Harry liking her a little if she could seduce him and it seemed that she could, at least for a while. She suspected her charm might wear off when he had had her maidenhead. _But he will still love my claim, will he not?_ Time would show.

But here was this other man who had kissed her and left her and forgotten all about her. As she forgot him. Except that she did not. She just couldn't think about him as she could not think about Father, her _real_ Father, because then Alayne would know she was Sansa and Sansa could only be reborn when Petyr said, not any sooner. It would be too dangerous to say who she was before the time was right.

But Petyr was also Littlefinger and he was dead now and it had always been dangerous to be Sansa Stark. Alayne Stone could never protect her; that was just another illusion Sansa had.

"Enough," she said aloud to herself and studied the man before her, occasionally glancing at the bundled boy. They both slept tightly. It was what the snow did; fighting with the snow, walking through the snow, Sansa knew. She had never slept better than when she was a very small child, after playing in the summer snows of her home. She should be asleep as well but she was not. How could she be? But neither her losses nor her petty fears were the reason she was sleepless now.

Slowly, she pulled the covers from the Hound's body, very careful not to wake him, much more cautious than before, when Robin first held the knife for chopping turnips on his throat as she busied herself making good, strong knots that would keep anyone in place. Even a dangerous man as he was, muscled as the oxen that once pulled the great winch leading to the Eyrie and, unlike the poor animals, _alive._ Her heart elated at that thought, painfully so.

She pressed her hand at the little black mark under his chin, gentle as a bird's touch. She had cut him there, or rather, he had cut himself, _laughing_ at her attempt to threaten him. Her chest widened to be impossibly large, unexpectedly so. And her fear of him sat quietly in her throat like an old friend. No, she did not love him… She had those other feelings for him, those that a true lady should never have.

He had _stopped_ laughing when he saw she meant it… He was impossibly still… And she had meant it… Gods did she mean it! Her cold determination on the matter almost frightened her more than he always had and still did.

Had she seen for herself that he served the queen again as she expected, she would have done it, she would have killed him, she would. And not only for herself. If the Hound was here, sent by the queen, maybe she wanted Sansa's cousin dead as well, in order to grant the Vale to one of her own cousins, blond and handsome. The Hound… the Hound did not think twice when commanded to kill a child, Sansa knew, remembering the butcher's boy, Arya's dead friend.

She looked straight into his sleeping face. It was ugly, to be sure, very ugly even. It hadn't become better with time. His good side was plain and his nose hooked. His hair was longer than she remembered it, black and matted; plastered to his skin and to his scars. She touched it briefly and it was _sweaty._ Just as his chest was when she removed the blanket and the furs and left him exposed to her eyes as he had been before; when helpless and tied.

She had never thought she would see him like that. She had never thought she would succeed in that. She was _Sansa_ and anything she attempted went wrong, she was weak and she could not fight back. Not with strength. Maybe, now and then, with lies and Arbor gold…

She supposed that the main reason she succeeded in making him helpless was that there was never any need to do this to him, and that on the next occasion when a man truly wanted to hurt her again she would be as helpless as she had always been. A perfect, innocent victim for all times.

She cupped his bad cheek as she had done years ago when the sky burned green, wanting, needing to remember. She exhaled at the feeling of it. This, was not a lie. This, was as she had known it. A tapestry of suffering woven of skin and bone. _This_ was him. And she had never thought of him often in the two years gone by, but whenever she did she wondered where he was, what he did and she… missed him and she was angry with him. Almost as she missed and was angry with all her dead family because they left her and they died.

Except with him it was different than that. He was the only one who took the place of her husband in her dreams.

She stared at his face again, at her hand on his scars, happy he was asleep.

At the beginning, on the kingsroad, she had thought him as old as her father. Lord Baelish had said that younger girls were best matched with older men and Alayne sometimes thought he was right, and usually after Sansa had one of those dreams.

But now, now, he looked both older and younger, older than when they met, for certain, yet quite a bit younger than how she remembered him. He was nowhere near as old as her Father would be now...

She thought of this contrast, a bit, and very soon she knew.

_I am older._

Alayne had met many people and she was a better judge of age and men than Sansa had ever been. Alayne was already five and ten and Sansa would reach that age only in a few months.

She traced a ridge of one of his scars, starting from his chin, avoiding the protruding bone on his jaw which was simply too ugly and glistening in the firelight. Her finger travelled to his forehead and scalp until the place where his hair began growing, continuing down the unmarred half to the unburnt corner of his lips.

She had known those lips.

The Hound's head stirred slightly. At the thought that he could wake at any moment, yank her hand, pinch her chin, pin her down to the bed and force her to sing for him, her heart and throat constricted. Fresh fear coiled in her stomach and climbed into her lungs until it nearly choked her. Yes, that was what he would do. That was what he had done before. She was stupid to hope otherwise.

But now he said he loved her. He had never said that before. And he could have probably done anything he wanted to her as soon as she released him. He chose to hold Sweetrobin instead.

 _Stupid, stupid Sansa,_ she scorned herself and her hopes. _Still so eager to be loved._ Maybe there was no love. And truth be told, she was being unfair now. How could she take pleasure in his confession when she did not correspond him?

And yet if love was just another lie told among men to sweeten the ugliness of their existence, there was this other feeling in the depths of her stomach, the one which was not fear and which could not be denied. It woke now when both the only man who'd ever caused it and her poor cousin slept.

 _What would Mother say?_ She wrung her hands in her lap. How could she be like this, all of this? Scared witless of him and of this other thing which was not love?

There was a way to find out. They were alone in the Eyrie and she might never have another opportunity. Even if he stayed with her, he would be awake and she would shy away from him. She would fear him. She would never know. She wanted to know. Unseemly as it was, she _had_ to know. No other man had given her this sensation. It had to mean something.

And she could not even ruin herself, could she, if she did only what she had in mind.

 _He will wake from it,_ she knew. _Maybe. But not immediately._

She rolled up the sleeves of her gown, Brown and dull as most dresses Alayne wore.

Goosebumps came out softly on the pale skin of her forearm. Uninvited, her nipples hardened on their own despite the oppression of the bodice. She sat petrified on the same spot, even more quiet than before despite that all her insides had turned to jelly from fear and anticipation of what she would try to do.

She could not take off his tunic without waking him, so she just lifted it up, to his neck. Smallclothes proved to be less of a challenge. She could slide them down his too long, muscled legs with small movements at a time. He stirred again, and snored in his sleep. She froze and waited with her eyes closed until his breathing calmed and all movement of his body stopped.

When her confidence was reborn, she looked again. He was as naked as she could make him in his sleep. His manhood was soft and limp and this gave her more courage, the knowledge that he _must_ be sleeping. Tyrion's was different, red and awful, when he, when he… She swallowed hard to suppress the repulsive memory of her wedding night; the horrifying sight of her dwarf husband's aroused, twisted body; her marriage bed cold as a grave.

Sansa stood up. Close to the fire, she disrobed, silent as the tombs of her forefathers in the crypts under Winterfell until nothing, nothing was left. Her skirts made a puddle next to his rags.

 _This is how husband and wife are carried to the marriage bed, to find joy in each other,_ she told herself to boost her courage, remembering the two things she knew _clearly_ about how bedding was done. The other thing… the other thing she would not do, she had to save that for her lord husband. She took a very deep breath.

Naked, she considered his poor clothing once more. _He has come here in this. He had no boots…_ She couldn't tell how knowing that made her feel, but it was not pretty at all.

Yet he spoke of it as if it was _nothing._ She would have died, probably. Or not. She hadn't died up to now as she well could have.

She sat next to him again. Some scars on his body looked fresher and uglier than the others, old and forgotten; on the back of his neck and on his thigh, where very little hair was growing. And his shield arm had been most definitely _burned._ She would go and fetch help for his pain if she could. She would cradle him as he cried if he wanted. Her mother used to hold her and it was what women did. But men did not want her compassion, Sansa had learned. Joffrey had only the vilest loathing for her offer of help when Nymeria bit him, and the Hound _cried_ the night of the battle _,_ yes, but then he just _left._

It was time and she would gain nothing by waiting.

Her throat constricted terribly, from fear of him, from what she wanted of him, from everything. She forgot her life down the mountain and slowly lowered herself on him so that her body covered his, or as much as it could because he was so much taller than her, no matter how tall she had become for a girl.

It was just as she hoped and just as she feared. All his body was radiating heat and her own skin was slowly warming up where it was pressed to his. Her nipples softened at first, but when she accidentally brushed them against the coarse black hair and the taut plains of his chest, they turned very stiff, as if she had bathed in very cold water, though all she felt from him was heat, and not the cold.

Bewildered by her reaction, Sansa lifted up onto her elbows and cupped her face to study his own, now slightly above and in front of her, with new eyes. It was still ugly, but in a different way. The tension, she realised, the tension was gone from him in his sleep.

And when she closed her eyes…. She did it only for a second. The confirmation of how she thought she might feel if she did this did not tardy. The vivid sensation in her entire body was so much stronger than when he had been carrying her earlier that day through the castle, which was already excruciatingly pleasant, with all the layers of clothing between them.

But this, this was ineffable. So much better than when he haunted her odd dreams, scarred and cloaked, always ending up pressing his cruel lips to hers.

She realised she was right in doing this, whatever this was. She hoped he would not be angry for it. He didn't seem angry with her when she'd untied him for tying him in the first place. He obeyed her and went to sleep. _Like a dog he always said he was._ She hated her thought yet it was there, unbidden. She didn't want a dog. She had Lady once but that was different.

She could not ruin herself this way, could she? If she only stayed like this a bit with him? She hadn't planned to do more. For her to be ruined, she had to lay down, she knew, that was that other thing she knew for certain; her future husband would be on top of her, to do as he pleased every night until her womb quickened.

But before that she just had to know another thing, only for herself. She had to learn why almost anyone in the Vale told jokes in front of Alayne, the bastard girl, about how sweet it was to be bedded, yet she had never felt anything remotely sweetened from a man's touch, except in her memories and in her dreams. Was it already a sin if she only wanted to know if people were right or wrong?

If it could be sweet...

She felt a hardening under her legs and froze again. _He will wake now. He has to._ This could not happen when men slept, she told herself. Could it? Maybe it could.

 _Or maybe he is paying me back, pretending as I did earlier today, and then he will_ _pin me to the bed and ruin me._ Fear was back in her throat. She didn't want that. She didn't know what she wanted, but it wasn't that.

She was very, very, very still.

She didn't dare sit up, and much less look down, under her belly and woman's place. She didn't want to see how his manhood looked now, for fear it would be exactly the same as Tyrion's, and that she would be repulsed by it. She didn't want to be repulsed. Not by him. And when she lay like this, and when she closed her eyes, the sensation of his changing member under her was anything but repulsive.

She felt so very warm, and soft, and aching.

When she opened her eyes again, she felt more like herself, aware of the room, of the cold on her back, of the bundle on the far side of the enormous bed which was a sleeping boy, not moving, thankfully, not moving.

She closed her eyes again and only the heat in her body existed. Maybe she had no body and was only there in spirit, soft and hovering.

 _He would wish me to look at him,_ she remembered, suddenly feeling guilty for doing this with him, to him. She opened her eyes again. Looking at his face now, its ugliness mattered little; she was so happy it was this face and not any other.

As she changed position, the lower part of her body moved by chance until her woman's place was on his hardness, pulsating against her folds. She stilled again. Moved again. Felt herself wet. Opened her mouth in shock and dread. This had never happened in her dreams. She moved herself up and down on him, only a little, very little each time, making small, shallow breaths, unable to close her eyes, unable to keep them open. It was well. It was more than well. It was good.

And as any dream, it was soon over, before she could withdraw from him and hoard the memory of her daring for future times.

"Fuck," he said, opening his grey eyes impossibly wide. She had never thought he had big eyes, she believed his were much smaller than hers. And maybe they were, but not now.

The look in his eyes was lost and it became more so with every moment that passed. She felt a little bit colder than before, and afraid, again, of what he would say, of what he would do. What could she possibly say to him about this? She realised she didn't think of this beforehand. Then again, she never planned this, no, she had just wanted to lay on him, not with him, as a woman.

So she said nothing and she kept looking at him, afraid.

To her surprise, he _closed_ his eyes again.

"Fuck," he repeated.

The word was vile and she couldn't understand why he had to use it twice now.

Both his hands closed the small of her back in an iron grip. And she was both more afraid and felt better than before when she had dared move against him on her own. She gave herself to the feeling, not daring to move now, staying firmly in place where he had locked her.

A bit of him was in her, she thought, or no, surely she had imagined that; it was a very little tip of something, warm and soft and hard at the same time. She was very, very, very still. She had not thought she could lose her maidenhead this way.

She moved a bit away from him, imperceptibly so, trying to wriggle unnoticeably out of his grip. Her action, slow and shy and unsuccessful as it was against the iron hold he maintained on her, caused him to speak for the third time.

"Fuck," he muttered.

All other words seemed to have left him; normally he had more of them for her, cruel, mocking ones. But that was before today, today he had spoken to her differently.

Suddenly, she wanted to remember, no, she wanted to relive their kiss from the night of the battle. But his grip was even more firm on her back now, restraining her every movement. She jerked violently the upper part of her body against him until he allowed the lower part to slide up, onto his stomach. Her woman's place felt _wet_ on him as if she had made water, but she did not, she knew that she did not. Her cheeks warmed and turned crimson, more like than not. But at least she was far enough up now.

Slowly, she placed her face above his, forgetting she had long hair, which fell all over both of them. He, he wrapped one of his fists in her hair to move it out of the way, gently tugging at her scalp. He looked as if he was keeping his eyes closed by force.

"Look at me," she said, hating the trembling sound of her voice. She was a child no longer. She should not act like one. "Is this…" she stuttered, hating it still. "Is this what is being done when… when there is love?"

"I don't know," he muttered instantly, obviously more awake than he let show. He opened his eyes and also his mouth, very slightly, against the side of her face so close to his, where he held her by her hair. He smelled as warm as he felt, she realised. Though not clean. It did not matter. It was perhaps good that he didn't smell clean though she couldn't say why for the life of her.

His other arm, the one that was not entangled in her hair, roamed up and down her back, ending finally on one of her breasts. His touch there made her want to move her woman's place up and down on his belly, so she did it and that… that was good and horrifying at the same time. Her thighs spasmed of their own accord, once, twice, unused to any of this, from being stretched and from something completely new.

"Fuck," he repeated again, left her hair, pulled her back down on his _manhood._ The tip was in her, she could not deny it now, and she pressed herself on it, just a bit more, because she felt this new need; a need to burst.

To lay on her back and spread her legs wide open for him.

She stilled herself again, crawled back up toward his face. He made no attempt to restrain her this time. His eyes were wild now, and almost black.

"What you want," he rasped, "as you want it."

_As I want it?_

It was a very strange offer to Sansa, one she didn't know how to use. Men always told her what she should do. She didn't honestly think he would be any different. He had directed her before, always back to her cage, in no uncertain terms.

"I don't know myself what to do," she reacted honestly, as he seemed to have done so far. She didn't know.

She knew one thing, but it could make him hateful. She decided to ask, looking as straight as she could into his blackened eyes.

"May I… may I close my eyes?"

"If you wish," he said, but his grip on her hips loosened and his gaze fell.

"Not for not wanting to look," she hurried to explain, "for wanting to feel."

She grabbed his hands and pressed them exactly where they were before, until her flesh hurt, deciding on a whim they should be just there. "This," she said. Her voice was deeper now and he grinned from it. The expression made him so ugly that her heart hurt for him.

She moved involuntarily under the pressure of his hands, huge and gentle. It was so much better like this than when she had been seated on the hard plain of his stomach. She sank down on him, spreading a little more, and felt a brief stab of pain. So she moved away, only a bit, and it was good again, his manhood against her weeping folds. She looked him in the eyes and he seemed to be done talking.

She couldn't be more wrong.

"Still looking?" he asked, avidly.

She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and lose herself in the weeping of her body, but it was not what he wanted, she could tell.

So she brought her face close to his lips. He must have curled up his body, lifted his head or something, because she could now reach his mouth with their middles joined. Her breasts brushed his chest. As if on command, his hand now cupped her second breast, the one which had not yet had his attention. Two sensations together, on her breast and in her woman's place, became almost too much to bear. She rubbed herself on him. She thought he moved with her now, but she could not be certain. Her lips ended up on the burned part of his chin, full of her own hair. She fought for the way through, to his skin, and then traced the scar to his mouth which tasted warm and wet, as it occurred to her she must have been down there, between her legs.

His tongue found hers, welcoming her mouth on his, and it was not at all cruel, as before. His hand never left her breast, her hips swayed back and forth and her entire body hummed. When she thought she could not possibly feel more than what she was feeling now, his other hand wandered to the hole of her behind, probed it gently and prodded it open a tiniest bit. She rocked against him and delved with her tongue into his mouth because it felt as the most natural thing to do. Her legs trembled uncontrollably now, her woman's place throbbed. She was being sucked into him and she finally, finally closed her eyes.

"Damn it," he cursed briefly against her lips and everything stopped.

She was being pulled away. His hardness brushed against the lower part of her belly as he set her aside, not ungently. He stood up brusquely, holding his manhood, leaving her in the state she had never known, aching and hurting and lacking all over. She was a maiden still, she thought, because surely the little pang of something she had felt in her was not nearly enough pain it should take to lose her gift.

He grabbed one of his rags from by the fire and wiped his manhood clean of something. She touched her belly, just above the soft hair on her woman's place and it was sticky. _His seed,_ she realised.

"Don't!" he exclaimed with sudden, unfeigned concern.

He took another of his rags, cleaned her hand, wiped her belly, until she was warm and dry.

"A great lady like you does not want a dog's whelp," he said.

She didn't. She wanted them to be as they were before, with the intensity and nervousness that frightened her.

But her body began slowly cooling down, especially her feet, and he made no move to return to bed. Fire dwindled in the hearth. The winter chill was palpable between the cold stone walls of the castle and under the high ceiling of the bedchamber.

Sansa stood up, walked naked, felt his gaze on her, following her steps. Slowly she put her shift and smallclothes back on, but not the gown. She should feel ashamed and she did, but much less than she thought she would be.

"Was it any good?" he asked lazily and she didn't like his tone. For a second it sounded as if they were both in the Red Keep, she a captive and he a servant of the Lannisters.

"Am I still a maid?" she answered with a question of her own, an honest one, needing to know.

"You should have asked the Imp that question, don't you think?"

"What does Tyrion have to do with us?" she didn't understand.

"Tyrion, see," he slurred though he was completely sober. "You call him by his name. You only ever call me, me."

She did. He was right. To call him only by his first name would be unimaginably intimate. Just like what they just did. She had never called him by his first name, not even in her dreams of him after he'd left. She was too afraid of it. As if it would change something, seal something, make it impossible to go back.

But now, now, she could not go back on this either. He'd said he loved her and she started this. She should have waited to know if she could love him back, surely that was what he wanted. Why else would he come all this way if not for her love?

"Don't be hateful," she said, dry, dressed for sleeping and very well touched. Her body felt differently, moved differently, sounded differently. She was both sorry and glad it was all over. _Does this make me a woman?_

_Does this make me your woman?_

_Will anyone want to marry me now?_

Of course they would. No one ever wanted to marry Sansa, only her claim.

"A maid you said," he sounded very uncertain now. "Fuck."

He returned to the bed, returned to where they were on it, felt and tousled the sky blue sheet with little moons embroidered on it. "Fuck!" he exclaimed, stronger than any time before she dared straddle him.

It struck her then he did not know if she was a maid or not before she came to him. Was it important to him? He said he loved her. She supposed he may have heard she was married if he was looking for her, so it should not matter. _Not to him_ , she concluded. He cared not for the opinion of the world. And he could not be Sansa's lord husband. _He could be Alayne's._ But everyone knew now that Alayne had never existed.

"Tyrion wanted," she said. "I didn't. He was so ugly. And he was a Lannister. I couldn't possibly! He let me be."

"Enough," he said. "I don't want to hear about the dwarf and what he missed."

Yet it seemed to Sansa he _did_ want to know. Her face fell. She never knew what to do with him when he was like this, impossible and awful.

"Fuck if I know if you are still a maid now," the Hound finally announced. "I didn't fuck you good and proper if that's what you are asking. But I can't tell you how much it takes to do what you are afraid of. There should be blood and there isn't, is all I know."

It gladdened her heart he seemed to know as much or as little as she did about what _this,_ what they did, meant for her innocence.

"I'm not afraid," she said. It was only half a lie. She was afraid of losing the only value she had as a pawn. But once she was wedded and bedded, her claim would be her husband's, not hers. For the first time she realised she may have wanted it to remain hers. It was not only about being forced to marry a _Lannister._ It would be a final treason to her family if she handed it down to just anyone.

She had betrayed Father when she didn't know better. And the hardest thing of all was to know that perhaps she should have _known_ better. If only she had let herself look, truly look at Joffrey and the queen.

She had learned something by now, and she needed to act as wisely as she knew how, in the name of honour, and of Father's memory. It was all she had of him. Memories were all she had from her entire family.

Besides, as long as her claim was hers, everyone would want her alive, she had come to realise. After, she was disposable. And the only thing poor Sansa was good at, she thought bitterly, was staying alive. She still wanted to live, weak and stupid as she was. Was that a sin as well? To want life and just a little bit of beauty in it?

If she wasn't a maid, she would lie, she decided, very firmly. It was known some ladies lost their gift from horse riding. The necessity bothered her. _Will I always be a liar, as Arya said I was?_

Yet she didn't regret this new knowledge of her body and of his. How could she? It was _beautiful,_ though she suspected the Hound might find some hateful words about it if she said so, in order to _ruin_ it all for her _._ Much like Arya would. She went to him where he was standing. He was still fumbling with the bedding.

"They don't tell about any of this to highborn girls in the north," she whispered, suddenly worried he might say she _chirped_ and annoyed him, and send her away.

He let the blanket fall. His arms hung next to his body, muscled and unoccupied. He seemed to have trouble looking at her. But after a moment he did, and she wished he embraced her but he wouldn't. Maybe he didn't know how. Maybe all he knew was to put a blade on her throat when she displeased him, just like Joffrey used to have her beaten. _But he came unarmed to me now._ It was the first thing she checked extensively among his poor possessions after she and Robin had finished tying him up when he was asleep.

He had never made anything easy for her, she realised. Perhaps it was never easy for him. But this only explained how he acted with her. It didn't make her feel any better about how he had sometimes treated her in the past.

But he had made her feel good now. Or maybe she did it herself. It wasn't so difficult. No wonder everyone's mouth was so full of it in the Vale. It seemed unbelievable now how afraid she was of him at the beginning. Maybe she just had to stop being a simple child and he would treat her with respect.

_As Father treated Mother._

The thought of the two of them as Mother and Father was unseemly, and yet strong. They were not married. They were not to _be_ married.

She looked up to him, searching his face for answers, not knowing how to give voice to her doubts.

Staring her down from his superior height, the Hound whispered back, sounding terribly young, almost as Theon the betrayer once did with his stupid jokes improper for the ears of a lady _._

"Guess what," he said, "they say even less to boys in the south."

Sansa Stark laughed as she hadn't done in years. When the throes of her laughter subsided, she brusquely put both her hands over her mouth.

Sweetrobin still slept and it wouldn't do, it just wouldn't do, to wake him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you WTFic, Gingerpie81, PeekabooFang, SassyEggs, ladysnotdead, blueSands, BurningDove and BlackBy for the kindness of sharing your opinion with me between the previous chapter and this one.
> 
> I can only hope that the readers of this story has may accept the change of POV and remain interested in it.


	11. Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, TopShelfCrazy, for a beta read.
> 
> There is a tiny bit of unbetaed madness in this one.

"If this Young Wolf has the wits the gods gave a toad, he'll make me a lordling and beg me to enter his service. He _needs_ me, though he may not know it yet." Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF.

**Eleven**

Sandor woke heavily from little sleep with the first light of a new, sunny winter morning in the Eyrie. Drowsy and slow, he staggered to the hearth and rekindled the dying fire. Lazy to go out in the cold and take a piss, he returned to bed, underdressed and conscious of the acid reek of his own body. It had been a while since he had been truly warm, and sweaty.

_She didn't mind it in the night,_ he thought stubbornly. _Why should it bother her now?_

He lay on his back and avoided looking at his side where a mass of long, unnaturally brown hair protruded gently from under the blankets. There were two feet of space between him and _Sansa_ in the great four-poster featherbed of the Arryns.

_But she didn't push the boy in the middle, did she now?_

After… after what he and Sansa did in the darkness he had been the first one to fall asleep, again, and for the _third_ time that night, for as much as he tried hard to stay awake, curious to see what she would do; if she would lie _close_ to him or as far as possible. To see if she would show regret. But emptying his cock always made him sleep, just like too much wine eventually did.

Now, he was the first one awake and in painful need to continue where they had stopped in the night, from the mere _thought_ of Sansa in his bed. He pointedly didn't look in her direction. He did not. Try as he might, it was useless. He still knew she was there. His cock knew it just the same.

_So much for pissing,_ he mocked himself. It would have to wait.

He could help himself, but the notion was unappealing in Sansa's presence, and if that was not enough, there was also the boy. The sun was up and either of them could wake at any time. So he closed his eyes, took comfort from the uncommon warmth around him and wandered into the safe corners of his twisted mind.

Since he'd renounced his masters and left them, that bloody night when the Blackwater _burned_ , the Hound had only coupled with his right hand.

A solitary craven on the run avoided inns; those very few that were left in business on the way _north_ from the capital, scattered through the lands thoroughly devastated by the War of The Five Kings. He would not give the boy king the joy of having his head on a spike. He would not trade his life for a fuck, knowing as he did that he was prone to _sleep_ after he was done.

Not before he killed his brother. And Gregor was out there somewhere, _burning_ the riverlands. It was only a matter of time before Sandor found him.

He'd told himself many times this was the only reason he ran _north_ after the bloody battle, and not anywhere else.

So he paid for his wine and drank it in the fields, staying alive. But the wine must have been eating his brains and not only his belly or that buggering Huntsman would have never caught him sleeping from drunk, nor delivered him to the flaming Beric Dondarrion.

After, he couldn't really go looking for a woman with Sansa's little sister in tow, could he? The thought of a _child_ seeing him rutting was just as unappealing back then as it was now. It was not that he had misgivings about it as a septon might, because it was a sin of some kind or because it wasn't proper, no; the mental image of a child, watching, simply watered down any needs he had for fucking, into his hand or elsewhere.

Later, on the Quiet Isle, he was weak for long. As soon as he was up and about, he started digging graves. Besides, the gods-forsaken septry became a river island in autumn. It was cut off from the land by the flooded streams and more devoid of women than any other place in Westeros he'd been to.

So at first, when Sansa woke him for the second time that night, he thought he was having one of those dreams of her he'd been haunted with. But she never… she never straddled him in his sleep. And her hair was never brown, always auburn as in King's Landing. And she never tasted as intensely sweet as the real Sansa in his arms.

He woke with her cunt on his cock...

He thought she knew what she was doing. She was a woman bedded. Maybe the dwarf wanted it that way or Sansa wanted it like that with the dwarf, though the Hound couldn't fathom why. Sansa would have squashed the little man if she lay on top of him.

The tip of his cock somehow got into the beginning of her _wet_ cleft. She teased him, moved away, asking him oddly if that was done in bed when there was love. At that moment he could not pay any attention to her question, registering it with barely an inch of his brain present.

But he remembered it now and he could not answer it still.

It was fortunate that he wasn't instantly able to fuck her and he was immensely glad for it now. He never thought he'd be glad for not fucking a woman, but there it was.

When he pulled her back down onto his cock, he even _hurt_ himself briefly because by chance he found some wrong angle for sliding into her. It was unheard of. It had never happened before. Well, if the woman was under him, or pressed to the wall, he could find the cunt easy enough, feel for the opening a bit with his fingers and get on with it.

The discomfort he experienced with Sansa was brief and unimportant because her wet cunt began caressing the tip of his cock without fucking him. He was never sheathed inside her, or maybe a tiniest bit. It was too wet, terribly tight and too bloody warm to know with precision. And when she lay fully over him and when they kissed, he just let all of himself go into that, whatever that was, in a way he would normally fight when drunk, not thinking. Her warm mouth on his scars, on his tongue, her cunt on his cock, her breast in his hand. He didn't know why he touched her arse in the end, it was also not something he would do, it just _happened,_ but the probing made her move wilder against him and he, he…

_It's no wonder_ , he thought, laughing at himself in the bright light of the morning.

After all the time with his right hand for company, he spilled his seed like a green boy.

_Maybe I should return the favour and wake her by laying on top of her now._

In response to that, the true bloody _boy_ turned and tossed in bed before he blessedly continued sleeping. His closed eyes now looked up to the ceiling and not away from Sandor and Sansa.

_Aye, dog. Some other time._

He wished she would want to have him on top of her. He wished she would ask him to do with her as _he_ wanted. He didn't think he would hear her say that any time soon.

_Maybe one day?_

To learn that the Imp did not touch her felt like a well-placed knife in his guts. He should be happy for it, but he wasn't or not entirely. Because if Sansa was a maid, then it was his fault if she wasn't any more. To make it worse, he did not even _know_. He wasn't inside her, but he was not away from her cunt either, and he didn't know how deep or how shallow the bloody veil should be.

_One way to know for certain,_ he couldn't help thinking. _Do it properly. She wouldn't mind, being that wet._

_But she would_ , he realised instantly. It was the only thing she wanted to know, after. About her precious maidenhead. There were no tender words of love for her enamoured dog. And if he pushed himself into her all the way, with or without that piece of skin proving her innocence, it would probably hurt her as seven hells if the Imp had missed his chance. Sandor had never given much consideration to his size down there; he was as he was. But, faced with the prospect that Sansa wasn't bedded, the awareness of his body acquired a strident, dreadful proportion; he was _not_ a small man.

He remembered the dead Littlefinger in Gregor's bag with awful suspicion. Did he force Sansa to have lessons in his houses as he had done with that other northern girl the Hound stupidly saved in the slaughter of the Stark household? Was he preparing Sansa to _please_ a lord husband of his choosing? She was so confident when she straddled him. She had always been afraid of him before. It could not be she had never done such a thing to a man.

But what if he insulted Sansa profoundly by voicing his suspicions, ruining his good fortune when it barely started?

He had never hesitated to mock Sansa before, but he had been in the court long enough to know that women who were not whores took offence in being compared to them, even when they behaved much worse.

Those very few women who sought him out for his cock over the years, and not for his coin, also knew where to find it, and Sansa both did and didn't know. It all led him to believe….

That, if she was the only woman he ever loved, he was her first man in this…

The notion did not bear believing. It was too much to hope for, and it would crush him if he embraced it and if it was a lie in the end.

He wanted to burst. On a whim, he decided. He would go out in the snow. That should take care of all his troubles for a while. He needed the cold. Plenty of cold. He would piss and he would be alright.

Sansa stirred.

At a safe distance from him in bed, she squinted through her eyes, opened them widely and blushed. Her gaze timidly found his under the furs, both looking at him and _through_ him as was her wont.

On an instinct, he wrapped one of his long arms around the small of her back, pulled her into his sweaty body, felt her freezing in place. Somewhat repentant, he released his grip, and let her retract back to where she was. Sansa relaxed in her stiffness, as far se he could see, but not fully, only a bit.

_To be sure. Changing your mind in the morning, are you?_

The rare, brave wenches and not-so-well born ladies who very occasionally favoured the monster with the big cock over a pretty knight always found Sandor in the night, in the dark corners of the royal palace, often after the feasts when wine messed with everyone's heads. It had yet to happen in the morning. And from those few encounters with women other than whores, the burned youth was demanded first hand to observe the practical courtesy of pulling out; not all wenches could easily find and afford moon tea and not every brew worked in preventing women from becoming with child. It didn't take him long to figure that if he pulled out, he might be able to fuck for free and sometimes, a prettier woman.

But none as beautiful as the girl in his bed now. He put his hand on her back again, slightly, without drawing her closer this time, spying for reaction. Sansa stretched, arched, yawned, almost relaxed, looked at him stiffly and offered him a perfectly false, forced smile.

"You want us to…" she could never quite finish her sentences when he was too close to her, it seemed. That was the same as he remembered.

To her credit, she continued stuttering. "You want us… To lay as husband and wife now. Because of what I… what I did. Do you?"

And yet at times she was as blunt with him as when her nature betrayed her in court in order to speak against Joff's orders and her own good. He had almost forgotten how this part of her felt. To see her speak up to him from such closeness brought him a wave of quiet pleasure.

"I do," he informed her truthfully, "but it doesn't mean I will do anything."

It was not enough for him. He always needed to say more.

"I didn't fuck you bloody last night," he reminded her, "and not because you didn't want me to."

Sansa buried her face into the sheets, trying to hide.

He regretted his words as soon as they left his unguarded mouth.

"Sansa," he rasped more carefully now, consumed by a terrifying doubt, "you do not expect me to…. to forget what you did? No, not what you bloody did. What _we_ did? I was all for it, remember. You don't mean for us to pretend we did nothing?"

Shyly, slowly, she raised her head again and met his eyes. "No," she said, "I don't think it is possible," she whispered fearfully. "I know this now. I know what this is to me. I only wanted to know."

"Know what?" he wanted to know what this was as well.

She ghosted his bare chest with her hand, moving it up and down once, stopping at the border of his smallclothes, afraid to go further down as he would have wished. She didn't touch it, but she did look at his cock _._

"I… I needed to see how your body felt next to my own," she said with scathing honesty and no pretence. Sandor's heart began pounding. "I've never felt this way before… If I may say so… I resented the proximity and the sight of a man's body. But with you, I… it would please me to feel it again. But... laying with you is more than I am willing to do… I... I fear it is not love, the feeling I have for you. I am sorry."

"Not love?" he asked back, hating how weak he sounded, as weak as when he told her about his scars.

"I don't think so," first she murmured, and then she protested, colouring more than she already did before. "I don't know! I don't know what this is, I don't know how or where to take it. You are not to be my husband. It isn't right."

"But you want this?" he whispered hoarsely, placing his large hand over hers and pressing both into his ribcage.

Sansa nodded with her eyes, lacking strength to answer, red as the Lannister crimson. He surmised that what she did say was by now becoming far too much for a lady.

And far less than what he wanted to hear.

On an impulse, Sandor kissed her, closing the distance between them only with his ugly face, keeping his body apart. Kissing wouldn't hurt her and after last night it was worth a try.

In the past, he extremely rarely kissed women, more out of curiosity as to how they would react to it than for wanting to kiss them for long, and even that only when he was younger, hoping, hoping... For a response he craved. For one of them to look through the mask of the beast he was both forced to wear and donned willingly, all the way down to the man beneath. Not one of them had ever kissed him back, no. They'd tolerated it or wriggled away.

He'd suspected for long that Sansa would be different in everything. She opened her mouth for him and it was warm and tight as her cunt had been before. Her eyes closed immediately, but she was kissing him back now, tongue battling with his. Palms digging into his shoulders. Palms grabbing his face. Both sides. Lips nibbling on his good and on his ruined lip as though he was one of those damned iced cakes she ate so daintily on royal feasts. She didn't look at him, no, the lady would never do that, while taking her pleasure from the dog, would she? But she had to feel all of it, the difference and the ruin of his face, she had to have a good long _taste_ of it in her mouth.

And she didn't seem to care.

She wanted to feel, she'd said. Well, he would let her. He found he wanted to feel too. Everything.

To hear he was the only one she was ever tempted to touch of her own will… as she had become the only one for him in everything… It was as if he had found Gregor's wooden knight once more and played with it for as long as he wanted.

Half way into the new wonder of kissing Sansa, of being kissed by Sansa, he still had half his mind present to ask himself when and in which way his joy would be taken away from him this time.

As if she could sense that his restless, churning thoughts had run away from her lips, Sansa sat up in bed, ruining the moment, hopping away from him as a bird in truth. "We should go to the winch and bring the servants up", she declared. "My cousin is frail. He requires constant attendance to his needs."

A boy required a good beating in the training yard by other boys, in Sandor's opinion.

But before he could offer his honest advice on that, Sansa roused the boy. Under her guidance and with her words of encouragement, the lordling got up, went and made water, dressed and ate the cold, stone-hard oats from yesterday, while Sandor was brooding in bed. By the time Sansa was finished mothering his lordship, Sandor's cock deflated sufficiently for him to take a piss.

They walked to the cellars, all three of them, through the path in the snow the Hound had cleaned out the day before and it was good that he did...

Winter conquered the castle during night. The Eyrie was seven white towers buried in the snow. At some places, the layers of it were taller than Sansa.

In the cellars, the chain which the Hound used to climb up, and on which Sansa and Lord Arryn returned to the Eyrie in the basket, hung limp and loose.

"The blizzard must have broken it," Sansa said.

Sandor was not convinced. "Or your men," he thought aloud. "My lady," he added mockingly as an afterthought.

"Why would they do that?" Sansa asked, not reacting to his hateful tone, wringing her hands prettily as when she had him tied to the bed pondering what to do with him.

"You tell me," he muttered, distracted by her wondrous curves, hugged by her simple brown gown and cloak in daylight. The colour hid well who she was, not enhancing her Tully features, but the darkness of it underlined the shape of her breasts and the beginning of her hips. He felt increasingly unable to keep his hands to himself. The cold was very welcome to him today. His cock remained conveniently small in the rags he wore. This was well because the boy was suddenly looking him up and down.

"It was you," Lord Arryn accused the Hound with the unspoiled, unflattering arrogance of a child. "You are strong as a monster. Everyone at court always said so. You must have broken it when you turned the winch."

Sansa appeared lost in her thoughts. Dreamily, she supplied an explanation, "Maybe the servants were trying to come after us on their own and broke it by chance."

"Or maybe they did it on purpose," Sandor begged to differ. "How much food is there?

There wasn't much, that much was clear to him since he arrived. As it turned, Sansa and the boy had no idea what food there was. He supposed the servants knew with great precision that there wasn't _anything_ and he could not blame the buggers for not wanting to come up here. No one in their right mind would want it in winter.

"I am their lord!" the boy bellowed as Sandor wondered if this was another little highborn believing in true knights in his head. "They should bring the shovels and clear out the tunnel from the Sky to the Eyrie to come and find me."

"This could take days, weeks," Sansa said, uncertain.

"Or my brother could be the first one to show up after some digging," Sandor said. He never thought Gregor could or would climb up as he did on a chain, risking his neck for Cersei. But he surely had pets whom he could command to dig rubble for days while he and Sansa were weakened by the hunger. "There has to be another way down."

"There isn't," Sansa said, and Sandor saw a flash of a very distinct concern in her eyes. He had seen it before, in the eyes of those he would kill in the next moment. The fear of death.

She was not lying.

They could just as well start digging through the tunnel and never make it down to the Sky before Sandor's strength failed. Or run into Gregor without a sword in his arm.

Or wait. And lose all his forces from starving.

_There is no way down._

On any other day Sandor would accept the bitter truth as a given but today he could not. He was with Sansa in the Eyrie and there had to be a way.

"Let me take a good look at these cellars," he said to say _something,_ contrary to his habit to speak only out of necessity or to deliver a nasty blow by his words.

Aimlessly, he walked on.

Sansa and the lordling followed freely. It had never taken him less effort to direct his charges. Except that they were not his charges and that he would hate it if they were. He was his own dog for too long and he began to like it. For as much as he knew in his guts that he would probably have to become a guard again if he wanted to stay with Sansa, in the world as it was. He didn't want this. He didn't know what he wanted from the realm of possible.

Cellars became dungeons at some point of their pointless stroll; the ice cells of the Arryns. The floor of each new cell was more slanted, leading to the open door out of the prison and from there further down, to the slope of the Giant's Lance six hundred feet below. From one of the last cells, the narrowest and perhaps the most dangerous one, with the floor almost hanging rather than sliding down, he could see the bloody waterfall…

_Alyssa's tears._

Sansa and the boy were always one step behind him, peeking after him into every new cellar or cell, probably seeing this part of the castle in detail for the first time.

There was no way out.

The Hound turned back, sulking, never speaking. He wanted to smash one of the walls, but he should better keep his strength. He stood to lose it soon enough.

So instead of breaking things he turned to boiling oxen meat for hours, until it softened enough that it could serve as a meal. There was also still a bag of bloody oats and more water than the three of them could drink in a lifetime.

_We shall not go hungry today._

_Mail_ clinked behind his back. The sound made him turn brusquely and almost reach for the hilt of the sword he didn't have. He reined in the reflex on time. In his darkest brooding over the boiling meat and the limited choices he had, which could be summed up to being fucked one way or the other, he had almost forgotten about Sansa and the boy.

But they remembered him. Between them, Sansa and Lord Arryn dragged a large curtain filled with loose pieces of armour and even a few blades. The transport was cleverly planned and executed as they would never be able to carry that much plate and mail in their hands.

Sansa was not the girl he left.

"If Ser Robert Strong comes up-"

"If _Gregor_ shows up and sooner or later he will," Sandor shut her up with black anger in his voice.

"I thought you could use this," Sansa finished lamely, trying not to flinch. Her eyes filled with concern and apprehension.

He effectively could.

"Who lived here in the past, boy?" he almost exclaimed when he spread the curtain's contents on the floor. "Giants?" The Hound rarely found pieces of armour that could _fit_ him without first being reworked and extended by a master smith.

"The Winged Knight was the first King of the Vale," the boy spoke of the legend as if it was history written down by the maesters, and not with little adoration. "He was taller than giants."

Sandor snorted. The armour was old, but the steel was still good. He doubted very much that any of the lordling's forefathers was a giant, but at least they were not short.

The blades were a different matter. They were all too small for him, and none remotely suited for facing Gregor.

Sooner than he would have thought, and before he finished examining the mail and plate at hand, it turned dark, and yet he was none the wiser as to what he should do.

Sansa had made the boy eat some oxen and put him to bed before he turned to take his part of the meal.

As he ate, she studied him quietly with that horrible manner of hers, never fully open, always reserved. Her observation made him feel like a caged animal. He wanted to growl and sneer at her, but she gave him no reason to, never speaking, and he didn't find it in him to bring his anger out all by himself.

Also, he began worrying because he never saw her eating and he had no knowledge whether she ate before or not, when he was checking the armour. He hoped that she did. He was not a wet nurse to anyone, nor a gallant prince to put food on her plate. If she couldn't stomach what he made, he gave a rat's arse about it.

Or that's what the Hound told himself.

When he was done eating, she spoke.

"I think…" she hesitated and nervously folded her hands in her lap. "I think Lord Nestor sent us here to… Gods forgive me!"

There was no way in seven hells _Sansa_ could finish _that_ thought.

"He sent you up here to get rid of you and so that you both die, one way or another," Sandor helped, illuminated by his clear view of life. "It would solve his problem with Cersei's army on his doorstep. And he wouldn't have to bloody his hands or anyone else's. How gallant."

"Yes," Sansa said, exhaling deeply. "And Harrold Harding would be the Lord of the Vale instead of sickly Robert Arryn. Most nobles seem to favour that choice."

Her face fell with sadness and disappointment, adopting that lifeless expression she wore when Joffrey forced her to look at her father's head. The Hound could not fathom how after everything she had been through, contemplating the average dishonesty of men still brought her that much sorrow.

Then again, he had to admit to himself, if only in his mind, those same truths she suffered for never brought him any joy either. He just took them as they were. It could not be any different.

The silence between them became thick with dust and cold and the sharp scent of snow drifting in through the high windows. The shutters were closed, but they could not keep winter out on a clear, freezing evening in the Eyrie.

_At least it won't snow again during night._

"So we share the bedding with the boy again," Sandor said carelessly, needing to _cut_ through that silence just as he sometimes needed to cut a man down.

To his surprise, Sansa walked to the bed, pulled some blankets and furs loose and brought it all in front of the hearth.

"If you don't mind," she said, pointing politely at the fire.

"No," he laughed, "No" he said. "This whole bloody castle should be on fire for me to become as I was when… when I left."

"We will die," she said suddenly.

"One day," he conceded. They had not died yet. He didn't see why they would die now. They just didn't know yet what to do.

"I would go mad here and with Sweetrobin all by myself," Sansa said. "I am grateful for your presence."

Gratitude was _not_ what he wanted.

She was looking at him under the eye. "May I… may I say something?"

She coloured, and Sandor was all ears.

"I would not have us do this just because we might die," she said dreamily.

"How would you have us do this?" he dared a question of his own, in his mocking voice, wondering what _exactly_ she had in mind, hoping it might include him tasting her body.

She could not answer him, pale and stiff and afraid all at once. He was very angry now, not understanding the change. He hadn't done _anything_ to cause it. Or not much. Not today at least. In the past… He did not wish to dwell on that. He could not. If he did, he would leave her. He could not leave her again. He could not.

"What?" he said, almost snarling. "Do you need to tie me first?"

Her eyes _twinkled_ brightly before they lost expression and died, faced with his tone. She couldn't possibly want _that._

_Could she?_

A highly unusual puzzlement mingled itself surreptitiously with the Hound's rage. He was… intrigued.

_Sansa._

_If that is what it takes for you to fuck me, just say it. I might consider it._

As one possessed by demons from seven hells, he undressed rapidly and lay naked on his back over the furs Sansa had stretched in front of the fire. He was not ashamed of his body as he sometimes was of his face. He had made it into what it was by choice. He did not have that luxury with regard to his face. _Weak. I don't want to be weak._ His exposed skin pricked slightly. It was colder than during daytime. He pretended to be asleep and did not say a word.

He listened, waiting…

The little bird could be quiet when she wanted.

He thought he heard the rustling of fabric, or maybe it was only what he wanted to hear.

He was painfully still and tense, unused to inaction.

He felt her soon enough. He wished they could stay in the Eyrie forever and do this every night. He knew that they could not. He thought very hard about his new mismatched body armour and how to assort it, but nothing could stop his swelling now.

She was on him, just like the night before. He wanted to feel her cunt with his fingers, to see if she was wet and how much, but he didn't, afraid of breaking her veil against her will, if he hadn't done so already. He contented himself by moving her over his cock in faster, shallow, more decisive motions, never searching for the way in. She guided one of his hands on her breast and kissed him. They had kissed in the morning, but that seemed like ages ago.

He needed to increase the speed, but she, she… she wanted to glide painfully slowly over him. She was killing him. It was not what he was used to. It was still better than anything else.

She made a sound then, a sharp little cry, her cunt sliding from the tip of his cock to his stomach.

It was too much.

He flipped her on her back and pressed at her cunt, never entering, or entering perhaps just a little bit more than when she was on top of him, past the point of caring. She first spread her legs impossibly wide, but then she stiffened again, closed her eyes forcefully and covered them with both her hands. She seemed lost and leagues away.

"Sansa," he called to her, calming down, leaning on his arms for good support, remembering that armour as much as he could.

This was not what he wanted either.

"Please don't," she said.

He pulled her up, sat on his arse. She was straddling him in his lap now, but he kept her away from his cock because he just realised that in this latest position he would slip inside her whether he wanted it or not. He never tried it before, but it felt too similar to fucking wenches against the stable wall, with the exception that he wasn't standing. Sansa was thawing slowly, coming back from her distance, back to him. Her eyes were now open and completely wild, as they were when she saw him first in the cellars of the Eyrie. One of her hands brushed his cock. By mere chance, it seemed. From that, she stiffened some more.

"I didn't do anything," he rasped in his defence.

To his shock, Sansa tried to _sit_ on his cock. On an instinct, he stopped her.

"You do this, and we have done this for good," he warned her.

"Even when I am not on my back?" she asked very timidly.

The Hound laughed. "Much easier like this than when you are on your back," he informed her.

Sansa's shoulders slumped. But on the next moment, she squatted, putting her weight on her feet and grasped his shoulders. Painfully slowly as she did before, she rubbed her warm cunt on the tip of his cock without ever sitting on it, creating unbelievable friction. His left hand caught her weight, resting on her bottom. He decided to feel her arse like the previous night, but his fingers wandered in the wet path between her curls and ghosted the surface of it, not venturing deep, never deep, causing her to slide over his cock and then against his hand. Or both at the same time.

He moved a finger up and down the entire length of her cunt, as it went up and descended to the tip of his cock, paying attention to stick to the moist surface and not venture any further. Sansa squeezed his shoulders. Her legs twitched and stiffened in a very different manner than when she was afraid. She dropped her head to his right shoulder. Her kiss on his skin became a _bite_. He could not understand why… He didn't have to stroke her many more times, or maybe he did, he couldn't tell. Sensations blurred, mounted. At one point, her entire body trembled. She pressed the upper part of her body into his chest as hard as she could, digging the tips of her fingers in the skin on his back, biting him harder, to the point that it almost hurt. She remained that way and touched his cock in very small, completely irregular motions, hanging on him, shying from his finger, unable to move with him or away from him.

She must have bit him to avoid making a sound, he realised, embarrassed, as he rarely was. He could fuck her then and there, and she wouldn't have cared, most definitely not. She seemed away in her own body, in her own pleasure, if that was what it was. To his sorrow, there was no song to go with it; only upset, telling silence.

He couldn't bring himself to fuck her, not like this, ready or not.

He just set her aside when it was all too much for him as it seemed to be for her, smelled his fingers, tasted them, and helped himself finish his own business at hand, as she stared him down, wide-eyed and lost. He was too far gone to care if she was watching him with his right hand.

"What was that?" she inquired after a while, when he finished cleaning himself, her voice deeper than ever.

"You or me?" he growled quietly, in a very low voice.

No answer was forthcoming. They were not in court. She was not bound to answer to him.

"A pleasure, I think. For both, I hope," he rasped on, assuming, not knowing. He could not tell her what it was precisely for women, they had no seed to spill. And he'd always believed that they needed a good fuck and some screaming to go where he hoped that Sansa had just gone. He'd just discovered that maybe they did not, much like men could spill their seed silently in their hand or in a woman's mouth.

Sansa stayed silent. To his utmost amazement, she put one of her own fingers between her damp, auburn curls and then _smelled it_. On an impulse, he took that finger, kissed it, kissed her mouth. They melted into each other for a moment, both getting terribly good at it after little practice.

After, when he manoeuvred her to proper bed in sparse, practical movements, in a way he used to direct her to the door of her chambers in the past, and when he pulled her into his embrace as he had tried to do in the morning, she didn't move away, though she did freeze with fright, quite a bit. He would ask about it, needing to understand, but the urge to sleep was too strong. He released his grip so that she could choose to wriggle out. She put a little distance between their dressed bodies, but she did not leave him fully, not even when he pulled the furs over them. She nonetheless carefully avoided his eyes, tucking his pretty head under his chin. He thought he saw her smile, but it was that damn Stark smile, the one that nearly didn't exist, not the crystal, unbound laughter she had gifted him the night before.

It was already more than he ever expected to find when he went searching for her. So much better than any of his dreams in either his sleeping or waking state. In the last mad dream he had of her, here in the Eyrie, before finding her for real, he had given her pleasure with his hand, of a different, stronger nature than what he thought he just gave her.

He pondered the distinction between a mere wet dream and this true something between them now; this, this was as well-behaved as only Sansa could be; a courteous, _ladylike_ pleasure.

It was only a matter of time before they lay together, he realised, if they continued at this pace. He became semi-hard at the thought.

He was falling asleep restless, with a seed of a ridiculous notion being born in his head about how they might try to leave the Eyrie on the morrow … The Mad Dog of Saltpans… Maybe the title of Mad Dog he was awarded was not entirely misplaced, judging by the boyish adventure suggested by the mush he now had for brains. He would see if any of it was remotely possible at first light. He wanted to help Sansa, as he should have done before, if he could. And the bloody boy as well because there was no one else who would do it. He was loath to let another boy die as he was left to die. Only because he was ill and ill-suited for life.

He felt feverish, the same as when he secretly planned to serve Sansa's brother on his journey to the Twins, in order to see her again, growing delusions that the Stark boy king might task him with freeing his lady sister. Who better than the traitor to sneak back into the capital and do this? If he came carrying her brother's message, maybe she would go with him. All delusions… But now… now… This was real.

He wanted more of her.

For all his mad love for her, he could not understand why this, this that he had from her now was both too much, too soon for him, and at the same time incredibly little.

_Not enough, never enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you DarkSister7, Mina, Gingerpie81, ladysnotdead, WTFic, Papla, SassyEggs, BurningDove, tini243 and blueSands for commenting on the last chapter. It means a great deal to me.
> 
> Any feedback is much appreciated and welcome.


	12. Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to TopShelfCrazy for a beta read that made what I intended to say much clearer.
> 
> As to speculation where this is going, I try to be a "responsible" fanfic author (laughs) and I will probably fail miserably at it. 
> 
> I haven't warned you for Major Character Death for a reason.
> 
> I have warned you clearly and with reason in the summary that Sandor may or may not find Sansa or now that he did find her, that he may or may not win Sansa in the end.
> 
> Thank you for reading.

"The villagers were building a wooden palisade around their homes, and when they saw the breadth of the Hound's shoulders they offered them food and shelter and even coin for work." Arya Stark, ASOIAF, about the Hound getting a job in a village in the riverlands

**Twelve**

The Hound woke dreaming of tight knots. Of curtains, leather straps with moon and falcon on them, and of building a palisade in a little village. Of brooding over a kettle of boiling broth and two days of unequalled joy.

In the past, he was rarely asked to make things. Even when the Faith sheltered him, his labour concerned death.

The Stranger was the unmaker.

Death was always a possibility. _Not now._ He rejected it firmly. _Some other time. There'll be plenty of new opportunities for it._

He would not be the deathbringer. He would carve a wooden knight for himself, all by himself, with pretty joints which could bend, and move and fight.

Sansa had drifted closer to him in her sleep, plump and soft against the hard planes of his chest. One of her tiny hands brushed Sandor's neck, just under the missing ear. It was… ticklish and it was what woke him. They had both dressed for sleeping, bringing back far too much fabric between them for the Hound's liking.

_It is for the better._

He needed, he wanted a clear mind this morning. He had to keep his wits with him. He felt the same with the imminent arrival of a battle or joust. The dead, clear focus on his body as a well-honed weapon.

Rapidly, he realised where Sansa's other hand was; stuck in the laces of his smallclothes. He immediately took it out, resisting a new urge, one he'd never experienced before; to kiss her fingers tenderly and wake her with sweet words… Provided he could think of some. He had never softened his expressions before.

Grey morning brought him fresh determination. He needed no new courage. He had always been brave, and at times more than it was good for him. This truth didn't prevent him from hatefully denying it in Sansa's face on the roof of the Red Keep. He... He had never been brave enough when it came to Sansa. And she... she chirped how valiant he had been when he had saved her in the riot. She did not mean any of it. She did not know what she was saying. She was too young.

 _She means it now. Every word and every touch by the looks of it. She might not call it love... but it surely isn't hatred._ The Hound pushed away fiercely both the inopportune thought and the terrifying hope it contained.

Bravery was unimportant. It did not save him from Gregor as a boy. It could not change _anything._ Strength could. But a man, no matter how strong, could not hope to best the world. If they stayed in the Eyrie, they were doomed. If they reached the valley floor safely, sooner or later he would lose Sansa.

He had fooled himself into believing he could stay as her guard; two nights with Sansa in his bed taught him better. He would not be able to stand having to watch another man take that place from him. So when this inevitably occurred, it was best if he left.

The Stranger was never far. And the sworn killer served him by nature. There was no telling what he could do if he allowed himself to stay.

 _Let me lose her much later then,_ he thought stubbornly. Maybe, in his way, he talked to the absent gods who made both the butchers and the weak. _Let me lose her only in a month, in a year. In three years. As late as possible. As late as never._

He wriggled out of bed and dressed warmly, abandoning Sansa to her dreams, tucking her up in linens, blankets and furs that smelled of _both_ of them. The boy… the boy was falling off the bed on the other side. He shoved him back and covered him as well. He did not bother to rekindle the dying fire. Instead, he hurried to the tower where he'd cried, the one overlooking the waterfall.

Today they would leave the bloody castle hung from the sky.

The sun, faultlessly present when it was not needed, decided to betray Sandor, hiding its face behind the flat, overcast sky. The lower levels of the castle were buried in fog. Seven white towers grew out of the sea of silvery mist on top of the Giant's Lance, as if painted over the dark clouds by bold strokes of a skilled artist's brush. He could not see the exact position of the waterfall, only hear it.

Yet the dog's hearing was sharp, confirming his memories of the place, comparing them with the layout of the dungeons in the Eyrie.

If he could lower himself down from that last, extremely slanted sky cell, he might be able to pass _through_ Alyssa's Tears.

But where would he arrive? What was behind?

Sandor was a child of the West. He drew his quaint hope for leaving the Eyrie from the memory of the lands of his youth, where there were plenty of high, craggy cliffs a man could scale. The Casterlys were not the only ones who had had their bloody castle built inside a rock.

With mad luck, it could be the same here. The crag behind Alyssa's Tears might be possible to scale _down,_ tracing a direct way to the valley floor; much shorter than the sinuous steps carved by the Arryns, which ran in great circles up and down the windswept mountain. Besides, the heavy mass of unfrozen, running water might keep some autumn warmth in the space behind it, and the ice away. The stony descent, if accessible, shouldn't be as slippery as the main path to the Eyrie from the Gates of the Moon.

Maybe they could go down in a single winter day. Maybe Sansa and the boy could walk at least partially on their own, without him having to carry them. He already counted on being a mule dragging food, armour and the best blade he could choose from the ridiculous ones available. If they made it safely down to where the waterfall ended, there could be lairs of wild animals on the lowest, still green and forested slopes of the Giant's Lance.

Without any luck, the rock behind Alyssa's Tears would be polished like a mirror, falling sharply down, smoother than the outer walls of Casterly Rock.

Unusable, except for breaking a neck.

 _One way to find out,_ he thought, walking, planning, pondering.

In the cellars, Sandor detached the broken chain from the winch, and hauled it to the doorstep of the last sky cell. He tied one end of it to the flat stone beam above the doorway, hoping his knot was as good as Sansa's. The large, rough blocks of masonry in the lower levels of the castle did look as though they had been handled by giants in the past. Most likely they were not, but the beam should be able to hold the weight of all three of them and a bit more. He let the loose end of the chain fall into the muddy blue depth of the sky, and crawled to the edge of the cell on all fours, to see in which direction it now hung.

Dark grey clouds foamed like tired horses, sinking into the mist where the chain was lost. The invisible waterfall roared, in place where Sandor assumed it was, and not any farther. The metal links dangled in the void. He shook them hard, looked back. The knot was holding. He was tempted to lower himself down immediately, but that would be a foolish thing to do.

The Hound meant to secure his descent by making more knots, out of some bloody hangings the castle was polluted with, and space them evenly over the chain. He counted on having to return up twice, to carry his two charges one by one through the waterfall. He could use more grip for that.

Besides, the girl and the little lord should better be ready to follow or they might waste one more day.

 _Give a day_ _to Gregor and he will_ _be here_. Sandor knew his brother's determination better than anyone. It was the same as his own.

He would not wait for Gregor armed with a metal stick instead of a proper sword.

With thoughts of death and ruin on his mind, he returned to bed and to his previous state of undress, sneaking under the covers next to Sansa, embracing her harder than he intended in her sleep.

He wondered if she would stiffen all over again from being just a little bit _under_ him, once she stopped dreaming.

His mind felt cloyed now, like the dim and foggy morning in the Eyrie. He couldn't help but wonder… Why did Sansa cling to him as no woman had ever done before? And why did she then _shy_ from him, so honestly and so prominently, whenever his passion made him behave as any man would with a willing woman? Lay her down. Have her. There surely wasn't anything wrong with him being on top, what, with her wanting him? He knew where to put his weight, and he had yet to squash a lady by bedding her.

The first night he thought she fretted only because of her maidenhead. Now, he feared it was something more. Whenever he tried to take matters between them into his hands, she was horrified. As if he was about to hurt her. And then she sought him with abandon he had not yet seen in a woman, as soon as he let her do as she wanted.

And let her he would. Because he couldn't do otherwise. Because he always ended up _noticing_ her fear and discomfort even when he'd been out of his mind. Because he was marvelled by the discovery that what she did with him was better than he had ever imagined any touching with a woman could be. He just wished she would grant him the same trust.

 _No, a lie right there._ No one was free of lies. Not even the Hound, or not entirely.

Sandor did not want only Sansa's permission to have her. He wanted her desire for him to be as painful as his own. He wished she would let him do as he wanted because she yearned for him so hard, body and soul, that she could not act any different.

Because she loved him…

But in this, Sansa had been more honest with him than he had ever been with himself. She told him frankly she did _not_ love him. She just wanted to train herself, it seemed, in what every wench of her age and quite a few ladies already knew. The notion made him both excited and wild. Mad with joy that she so obviously chose _him_ for that, and wild with fear he would want to kill her when she left him for someone else.

No one loved the Stranger. No one lit candles to the god of death. But he still took all in the end.

_Are you dreaming of handsome knights, pretty bird?_

Maybe she did, but she'd come to his bed twice now, and she did it with pleasure. He would not fault her for her dreams.

A blue eye opened and closed.

"Sandor," she said sweetly. Her hand reached for his scars and found them. "It is you. Thank the gods."

 _Who else?_ he thought bitterly, before realising it was the first time she called him by his name.

"We should get going," he rasped gruffly, afraid, afraid, afraid. Full of impossible hope. She surely sounded as if she cared for him now, no matter what she'd told him. The delusion was too much. Too believable. "There is another way down. You won't like it, but it exists."

Her eyes filled with curiosity and her body tensed, ready to spring into motion. On a second thought, she stayed where she was, studying his face, blessedly unbothered by his too tight embrace, unlike the morning before.

Suddenly she looked away and complained frostily, "Yesterday you kissed me."

He tilted her chin back. She had to look at him again and she did. Both of her hands were on his face now. He hesitated, torn between his wishes and hers.

"Sandor," she said carefully, as if she was _tasting_ his name. "Are you now the one pretending we did nothing?"

"Watch me," he said, stirred to action by her demanding coldness, "I will lay over you now," he warned her. She stiffened. Yet she remained in place, not saying anything, holding on to his cheeks. He kissed her hungrily, disrespectfully, once, twice, making her gasp. It was not nearly enough. Her shift and smallclothes were not an obstacle. He pushed one up and the other down as Sansa kissed him back, oblivious to him undressing her. Rapidly, his lips left hers, ran down, found a breast, briefly touched another. They trailed a warm path down her belly and between her legs. She was wet when he licked her cunt and jerked wildly against his face.

"How is this for _nothing_?" he muttered, doubting she could hear him.

Her nails were on his scalp, his hands on her buttocks. He gave her cunt a good, long look. It was soft and perfect, with just the right amount of correctly coloured hair. He would die happy if that was his lot today; smelling Sansa, tasting Sansa. She might have tried to get away, or change position but he wouldn't have it now. This could not _hurt_ her, nor her precious maidenhead if it still existed. With some luck, it might feel good for her. So he just licked her up and down, and many times on the place that made her shriek and writhe if he lingered on it.

Contrary to his expectations before he started it, he was easily able to ignore his own growing needs out of amazement and admiration for the pretty movements and sighs Sansa began to make. He would never admit it to anyone and let him escape with his life, but it was the first time that the bear, or rather, the dog, tasted the honey of any woman's hair when sober. And how sweet it was… Sweeter than the buggering, awful song some lazy cunt had made out of it.

Sansa must have been _hitting_ his head as hard as she could, and the fresh scratches from her nails on his scalp must have been bleeding when he finally realised he should better stop and release her.

She was up in an instant, flushed and _angry,_ catching her breath. _Beautiful._

_Have you had your pleasure? Was it better than touching yourself with my cock?_

"How was that?" he asked, needing an answer, _dreading_ her answer, unable to chase the arrogance of accomplishment out of his voice.

"Don't you _ever_ do that again," she commanded, all ladylike and splendid in her wrath. Sansa dressed faster than any man and stayed as far away from Sandor as the spacious lordly chamber allowed.

"You didn't like it?" he couldn't shut up.

It was not what she wanted to hear.

"That is beside the point!" she exclaimed. "I was asking for a kiss!"

"And I kissed you," he responded bluntly. "Didn't I?"

"You don't love me," she judged, stunning him, cutting him as no one ever did with either word or steel. "No one does. Probably no one ever will. You are the same like all the others. You don't see me, only yourself. I should have never given in to this… to my imaginings of this."

Sandor's breath hitched and a torrent of words remained stuck in his throat. _You imagined this? Have you thought about_ _ **me**_ _when I was away? Did you miss me, Sansa? Did you dream about the drunk killer sleeping in your bed?_ He would have never thought it possible.

Naturally, what Sansa told him next was anything but pretty. "I am not a child any more," she said with extreme regret, and as though she had to remind herself of that fact all the time. "I should have known better than to trust you with myself."

Her fury was on the rise. Despite that, she restrained herself, paused, made a scowl. Her lovely face turned immobile. Sandor felt a terrible unease. He could understand a yelling angry woman better than the silent one.

"Sansa, I-" he began, not knowing what to say, nor what was so wrong in what he did. His utterance of her name brought her rage back.

"I shall not be going anywhere with you," Sansa proclaimed as her final judgement in the matter. "I'd rather die. I should have died when my father did."

"Where are we going?" the boy suddenly asked from his bundle of furs. The Hound had never noticed, but Lord Arryn had fallen to the floor with his bedding at some point. Now he woke from Sansa's strident string of accusations, bright and eager as only young boys could be.

Sandor had to laugh at Sansa's stubbornness and the boy's innocence. It was the best he could do and much better than crying twice in only three days. And since Sansa wouldn't listen to him, at least he was spared the need for further talking.

Laughter was wrong.

Sansa snorted and stormed out of the room with all her feathers up.

"Why is Lady Sansa so angry?"

"You. Shut up and do as I say," the Hound said matter-of-factly.

He ended up _fathering_ the boy into breaking his fast and dressing up. Then he employed his eager little lordship to help him look for Sansa. A blind man could see that the boy was as much in love with his cousin as the Hound. They searched all accessible places in the bloody castle and found no sign of her.

Cold sweat beaded under the mismatched armour Sandor donned for leaving the Eyrie. Nagging fear overtook his soul. She wouldn't have jumped, would she? Some simpering ladies did such stupid things in the songs when their hearts were broken… He hoped he could not break her heart if she didn't love him.

"Sansa, come out!" he shouted as dispassionately as he was able to. "Please!" he added, uncertain why he thought of that word as necessary.

Nothing.

He had somehow ruined everything himself. Worst of all, he didn't know how precisely, nor how to make it better. He turned to brooding and pondering whether a jump from a tower would be a clean death or not when the boy found her, hidden under one of the remaining dead oxen in the cellars, cold like a corpse and red in her face from tears. The sobs betrayed her to his lordship, it seemed.

The Hound dragged her out.

"Go away," she said hatefully.

"I left you once," he reacted instantly, "I won't do it again." He hauled Sansa over one of his shoulders and carried her straight to the bleeding dungeons, ignoring her heartfelt attempts to free herself from his hold and punch his back.

The boy followed behind like a good dog, beaming at his success in finding his pretty cousin.

The Hound chained Sansa to the wall of the sky cell as if she were a noble prisoner of the Arryns. It was not very courteous of him, but this way she could not run back up to the castle, nor take the slanted, sky exit down from it. She cried softly and never said a word. Sandor did his best to ignore the ache her tears caused in his heart.

"Stay here and don't fall out," he ordered the boy at the cell door. "I'll be right back." His rasp sounded feeble, not his own.

"I am not a bad boy," Robin explained in a trembling voice. "Only bad men are made to fly from the Eyrie." The boy sat on the doorstep and waited, with his back turned to the sky.

The Hound busied himself packing as much food as he dared to carry down on his armoured back in a large leather bag. He added flint and steel and some firewood. Finally, he ripped several pairs of thick curtains from the high, shuttered windows of the castle.

Back to the sky cell and ready to go, he pulled the chain back up from the void, and made knots on it, methodically, every three and a half feet or so. Unbidden, the boy began to help with shaking hands, chirping idiocies as he worked. The Hound could not repeat, nor did he remember a single thing Robin Arryn said. But, to his credit, he never went into a nervous fit.

When the man and boy did as good as they could, the Hound lowered himself down the chain into the grey and blue nothing. He lost sight of the castle when his body descended into the fog. The waterfall slowly came into view. It was not far, but it was positioned at a different angle than he had expected. He would have to rock left and right on the chain in order to gain momentum and pass through it. Armour did not help. He was heavier, which would be good once he caught speed, but he would be that much clumsier in catching it.

_I should have gone down in rags._

_Aye. And fight Gregor in them. I will have one chance in a thousand to bring him down. Best if I use it properly._

He swung his long legs back and forth, and forth and back and up and down, forgetting everything else.

He was a body in movement and he would reach his goal.

On the first try, he underestimated the water pressure. The torrent was sticky and very strong. It nearly sent him flying across the empty sky, whipping him as a lash with a thousand fingers. He managed to rock back. The second time he jerked his legs and his middle forward much more decisively, swallowed quite some ice cold water and was through! But not yet far enough to reach the rock behind, which was much farther from the fall than he had foreseen or thought possible. The slow work of water must have delved it over the centuries. The top of the cliff high above the Hound, where the fall started, jutted out much farther than the cliff face. He had to go two more times through Alyssa's Tears and back, before he managed to land on it.

The rock was free of snow and ice as he had hoped. It descended sharply, but not that steeply that it could not be braved. A narrow, natural path ran down the side of the cliff, between stones of various sizes, with plenty of hold for hands and feet. If one didn't look down too much, to the dark blue nothing, even a child should be able to take it. Sheep and goats most certainly could.

Sandor placed a large loose stone on the end of chain to keep it in place, and scaled the rock just a little bit down, until he found a deeper hollow where he could take off his armour, and unload the provisions he was carrying. The food had stayed reasonably dry in the leather bag he'd used. He would never climb back to the castle in mail, but he decided to take the empty bag in case he needed to bring more things.

In rags, he went back up, for Sansa and Robin.

Alyssa… Alyssa Arryn had to have too many tears. The water torrent soaked every inch of Sandor's body when he launched himself armourless through the fall, using the rock as a base to push himself off, and spring as far as he could. After the forceful cold bath, he probably smelled better than after his long journey to the Eyrie. Yet every frozen muscle in his body warred against him, resisting the necessary effort to climb up the chain. He was miserable, and cold to the bone.

When he grasped the slanted floor of the sky cell and strove to regain his breath, he knew that this would be his last chance. He'd never climb back another time. He had to carry both Sansa and the boy down in one go.

_Down is easier than up._

"Will you please go?" he asked Sansa from a distance, dripping water all over the cell, wringing out his hair and the rags he wore. "Or do I have to tie you to myself by force? Either way, you are not staying here. You may think I am some monster, but so is Gregor."

Mutely, she nodded, but she never said a word to him as he unchained her. There were no marks left on her wrists as he feared, but there seemed to be one in her eyes. _Why do we always go back to the beginning?_ He wanted to laugh madly, thought better of it, and just chuckled.

"Undress, both of you," he commanded, realising what the bag would be for.

Sansa looked at him with fresh panic. "It is improper-"

"Not as on your name days," he interrupted her impatiently. They didn't have all day for this. "Keep the tunic, I mean, the shift, and the smallclothes on. Wrap a curtain around you as a cloak. Fold the rest in here," he pointed at the bag he carried, opened it carefully on the floor of the cell. It was the only chance to keep the clothing of his charges somewhat dry.

Sandor had been soaked before, during the incessant travels of Cersei and her brood from King's Landing to the Rock and back, and he had lived through it just fine. It gave him a fever or two and nothing more. But women and children travelled in wheelhouses. He didn't know if Sansa and the boy could withstand the fury of the elements.

When his charges were done obeying him, he put the bag over one of his shoulders and squatted. "You," he called the boy, "on my back."

It would have been probably easier or more balanced if Sansa went on his back and the boy in front, but then he wouldn't be able to see her. And he very much wanted to look at her while committing this latest act of madness.

There would be no going back.

The boy complained. "I don't want to fly."

"You won't _fly,_ " the Hound said. "You will take a cold _bath_ and then you will walk. Do you understand?"

Robin Arryn scratched his head and decided in favour of climbing on Sandor's back. "The maester sometimes gives me cold baths," he justified, more to himself than to anyone, as he sank into place. He weighed less than the bag.

Sansa first glared at Sandor, but then she walked into his embrace, wound her slender arms around his neck and tucked her head under his somewhat dry chin. She shivered, from the coldness of his wet garments, more like than not, or perhaps afraid of looking at the muddy sky at the end of the sharply descending cell. The Hound tied the last long curtain around all three of them before picking up the chain.

_Best do this fast._

He ran down the slanted floor as fast as he could with his precious burden and jumped into the fog below.

He was certain that they were falling, _flying_ to their death. He imagined the chain had broken, but none of it was true. The sky was silent and grey, with the whistling of the wind and the beating of his heart as the only sounds. They swung in the air, back and forth, not yet fast enough to brave the fall.

"Look at me," he whispered to Sansa.

Blue eyes departed carefully from their prison on his shoulder and were lifted to his face. She was… less angry. And probably mortally afraid of dying. He looked at her with… love, wondering how she saw him. _I wish you well. Can't you see?_

"Don't be afraid," he told her.

"I'm not," she murmured.

He could swear she was caressing his bare neck with her thumbs now, more interested in studying his skin, than in the fact they were hung at least seven hundred feet above any ground. He would never understand her.

It was time.

"Time for that bath," he warned Sansa and Robin. "Keep your mouths closed."

In a great, sweeping motion, he tossed his legs back and forth and more forward, until the brutal shower hit his head again. Despite his warning, Sansa shrieked and the boy cried, but the sound of water swallowed it all. It seemed as if the torrent would never stop crashing down on them. Until, just like that, they were through, and far enough by some miracle, on the dry, welcoming rock.

It was impossible, yet they had done it.

On the other side, the Hound let the chain go into the void.

_There is no going back._

And his labours would never end that day. First, he carried Sansa down to the hollow with food, not even asking her if she could walk, despite the boy's protesting that he was a lord.

"You are a lord," Sandor told him brusquely, "and she is a lady. That's the same as saying she's a woman. You like knights, don't you boy? They protect women and children, don't they?"

The Hound didn't believe in that wisdom, but it sat well with the boy, much better than anything he'd ever told Sansa. Robin shut up, and to his utmost surprise, _walked_ down after Sandor. In all probability he was more afraid of staying up on his own than breaking his neck by heading down.

They were behind, behind Alyssa's tears! Sandor allowed himself to feel a small measure of satisfaction. Sansa exchanged the wet shift and curtain for a dry dress, a cloak, and the long, warm socks women never had to wear in King's Landing. Sandor wanted her so much to tell him how brave he was, but she chose to ignore him. _So be it._ He tried not to look. He would be strong. He would be himself again. He would forget.

Except that he would not. He had never been able to forget her. He would be more unable now, knowing the taste of her, the passion in her.

Robin peeked out of the hollow, his gaze studying the narrow descent, avid and curious.

"Will you be able to descend further on your own?" Sandor asked, expecting no for an answer.

The sickly lad nodded. "I think so," he said, to the Hound's surprise. "I still don't want to fly, so I'll have to walk." His lordship's childish logic was faultless at times. Dressing was another matter. The Hound had to help him with the change as his little body shook, and shook and shook. Foam came to his mouth. In the end, Sandor had to undress. Half-naked and half-dry he held the boy in his arms and waited until the fit stopped.

When he was done with all that, Sansa was already ten steps down the crag, without ever saying a word. She had tied the top layer of her skirts and the edge of her cloak around her waist to advance better. Her lady's boots seemed soft and pliable enough to give her a good grip on the stony path. The Hound noticed with approval that she used her hands as well, to support herself when going down. He would do the same, as much as he could, never looking down, into the enticing dark grey depth between Alyssa's Tears and the descent they were taking.

"Come Sweetrobin," Sansa called the boy, "it's not as hard as it looks."

It was, the Hound knew. But it was good if the boy didn't. _Sweetrobin_ followed Sansa as if she had invited him for a walk in a manse flower garden of the Red Keep.

The mule turned to take the rest with him. The bag… The bag was neatly _packed_ for him, with the food and firewood on top, and soaked laundry on the bottom. The Hound whistled merrily. The small gesture of Sansa's favour made him feel less cold and wet in his rags as he armoured himself, picked the bag up, followed. He was now the slowest one, the heaviest one, loaded as a plough horse.

It took them less than two hours to reach the large, clear blue pool of crystalline water where Alyssa's tears ended. Sansa paused to observe it with curious eyes.

"It is quite lovely," she said.

Sandor stood behind her back, having to agree. "It is," he rasped above her head. His breath seemed to stir her, but he did not know to what end. Carefully, he placed his hands on her waist and held them there. She released the knot of her skirts and cloak down, before adding her hands to his, never leaning into him, and it was no wonder she did not; he was a looming mass of wet fabric and hard steel. She… studied his fingers now with her touch. He froze, unwilling to move, afraid to speak.

 _Sweetrobin_ ruined the moment before Sandor could, by sitting down and yawning.

"No, sweet," Sansa scurried to her cousin. "We will sleep later, won't we?" She turned to Sandor, abandoned by the lake, for confirmation.

"Later," he parrotted in agreement, feeling like a giant bird from the Summer Islands.

The day still lasted and it was best to walk as far as they could. They continued their journey among the first, weak trees, towards the woods and the fertile autumn planes of the Vale.

Sandor still could not decide on the place to make camp when they reached the pumpkin fields he had seen when entering the Vale through the Bloody Gate. The ground was hard and cold to sleep on, despite the absence of snow. On any other day this would be nothing to him, but today he wanted a proper shelter. A cave, a cabin, an empty lair...

When dusk came, they sighted a road.

Abruptly, the Hound discovered he could walk no more. His body decided to betray him. He sat down groggily and discarded the provisions. The dog had done his duty. Now he needed rest.

"Go on," he told feebly to Sansa and the boy. "You will doubtlessly find someone who wants you on that road."

"And you?" the boy sounded worried, sitting next to him.

Sansa, on the contrary, obeyed his command and headed to the road. Sandor felt empty.

_Little bird. You've already flown away…_

The boy ran after Sansa. They spoke. The Hound could not hear what they said. He was too tired and wet through and through. He was old and the effort had been too much for him. His vision blurred.

A hand was on his forehead before long.

"You have high fever," a pretty voice said and then the bird's touch left him.

"I can't! Damn it!" Sansa was cursing loudly and courteously in his proximity.

"Give it to me, cousin," the boy said.

Was there a fire? Sandor wasn't certain. He was pulled down, undressed, redressed, covered… in another curtain? Did he pack one of those as well? Four hands were on him, than two. There was chatter and discussion, but he couldn't grasp a word.

A warm body snuggled against him.

"Tell me while we are waiting," Sansa said, her voice calm and poised like when she mothered Robin.

"What?" he asked. "Didn't I say enough for today?"

"Tell me," she insisted. "How do you know that you love me? How does it feel?"

"I don't know," he rasped, feeling drunk. "I just do."

"Is that all?" she sounded… disappointed.

"I-" he had to try better, grateful for the fever that took the place of wine in his veins and made it possible to say more. "I- I want you. And I want what is good for you. Even if it is not me. But then I wish it was me. Me being good for you. Some days I believe I am good for you. On most days I know I'm not."

He was being embraced now so he must have said something good.

"And at times it makes me want to kill. To kill you." The hold on him lessened, wavered. "Or me. Or any husband of yours." A hand separated his matted hair, caressing his scalp.

"Oh," she said. "I see. For me love was different."

"Mine is like this," he said, burning. It was the truth. "But I will leave again before I can hurt you. I promise you that."

"What of yourself?" Sandor couldn't fathom why Sansa wished to know this.

"Why do you care?" he asked and received no answer.

"Here, here!" the boy cried out

Sandor was left alone. His body ached in solitude. After what felt like all eternity, a helm was clumsily slammed on his big, ugly head.

There was deep silence and then there were banners, horses, carts.

"They are here!" someone else screamed now, not the boy any more with his peeping voice.

"Who is this?" a familiar male voice grunted with surprise. The Hound must have unhorsed the speaker in some bloody tourney.

"The mystery knight Sweetrobin told you about," Sansa chirped. "The good ser heard there was a tourney but he came to the wrong castle. He arrived at the Eyrie and helped Lord Arryn and myself descend after that terrible _accident_ with the winch which left us alone and unprotected."

"My brother has sent you up for your own safety, I hear. But how could you possibly wind up here and not at the Gates of the Moon?"

"I would not know, my lord," Sansa feigned being empty-headed, with great mastery. "The gods must have shown the good ser a different way. Lord Arryn and I merely followed his lead in our need for protection."

The Hound was picked up by rough hands, belonging to men, not to a woman, nor a child. He regretted this, more than he thought possible. He was hauled on a palette, loaded on an open wain like a dead pig.

"And stay covered," the unknown manly voice bellowed at him.

The good dog pulled a coarse woollen blanket they gave him to his chin and listened. _Where is she now?_

"Yes, Lord Royce. Thank you so much," Sansa chirped, happier than ever. _She is still here._ The boy was apparently taken somewhere else. He waited, drowsing.

A while later, a flagon with…. _strongwine_ was put into his mouth, and removed as soon as he had a good pull from it.

"Tell me more," she commanded from above.

"Of what?" he rebelled. Why couldn't she let him in peace?

"Of your love for me. Please. Tell me how it feels. I want to hear about it."

It was the most cruel demand. It would be easier if she asked him to kill for her.

"I never _wanted_ to love you," he growled, "it is torture," he kept rambling, "but I don't want to be free from it. From you. I was empty, before."

"I know empty," Sansa said very seriously, sliding under the blanket with him. Her legs nested over his laying body, but she remained seated.

"Is this wise?" he asked.

"Why?" she sounded confused

"Can't they see us?" He couldn't believe he was the one indicating the limits of propriety. They were back in the society, in an open wain. He wished they could have stayed up on the mountain.

"The queen's army is in the Vale," Sansa explained with soft bitterness in her sweet voice. "They may have no love for her, but she is still Queen Regent. No one sees the traitor's daughter now, nor her claim. They are happy to leave her to the mystery knight and see what tomorrow brings. They only took their lord."

"I am no knight," he said on an impulse.

"I know," she said, "thank the gods." And then, weaker, curious, bleeding honest, "What you did this morning, wasn't it… It must have been awful for you… I was… I was so _dirty_ down there… I didn't have a bath in _three_ days… Or is it something men do all the time?"

"I don't know. I never _asked_ other men about it _,_ " he said with pointed disgust. "I did it because I wanted to. I did think of myself, you were right about that part, but also of you."

The thick silence urged him to go on.

"Women like it," he muttered. "If well done," he was forced to add for the sake of the truth. Men liked their cocks to be sucked properly. He supposed it had to be the same for women

He didn't know with any certainty how he fared on that battlefield. The first time he licked a cunt he was young and very drunk. The wench he ended up with in the alehouse smelled good and was almost pretty. When he visited the place after a week, she was not there, but a few other hens whispered to each other and pointed at his face. He downed his wine, laughed at them, left, never came back, never asked. After, he did it rarely. Kissing was not his lot. His face was probably not what any woman wanted on her lips, up or down. Until…

_Sansa, you did it so freely._

She was both accepting and bold with her kisses. She had almost made him forget that his face was not like any other.

Fever brought more babbling nonsense to his tongue. "I- I thought I might try a different kiss when you asked for one. I am-"

"No," Sansa put her hand on his mouth, "I should be sorry, I think."

"But you are not?" he inquired very carefully.

"No," she shook her head. "It was… It was good to show I was angry instead of pretending I wasn't… But I… I… I ought to tell you something. I… You…"

"Just say it, Sansa," he demanded.

"It is just that when you… when you lay over me … I remember you as you were," she finally managed. "Spiteful, with your eyes full of rage, before I ever said or did anything to you. You pinned me to my bed and it was _horrible…_ And then I remember all those others… Joffrey, dancing with me, saying he will put a bastard in my belly… Tyrion, climbing into my bed with his horrible swollen manhood... Marillion, the singer, who would have raped me if Ser Lothor did not come… Petyr and his kisses stinking of mint… I remember and I _hate men_... I hate _you._ I turn rigid and I wish to close my eyes and disappear on the inside until it is over. Until whatever has to be done to me this time is done, without me taking part in it. I don't think I'll ever be able to do my duty and lay with a man as my mother and septa taught me I should. It will always be forced," she paused.

Sandor did his best to deliberate over her words. He did not know all the bloody men she mentioned, though he already wanted to kill them all. Unfortunately, he knew himself better than anyone. What he did, what he could have done... He could very well understand… hatred. The impotence of being held down... Except that he wanted to lash out from his pain and she wanted to… block it? Pretend it did not exist? He could not understand this.

"I won't touch you again," he said, meaning it, tempted to swear it to her.

"It's not that!" Sansa protested.

 _Is it not?_ His sick heart galloped, hoping.

"I just… I just don't want _you_ to be the one forcing me," she hammered down; her very last, seemingly important thought that the Hound could not understand at all. Would she hate it less if it was someone else raping her? Someone handsome?

Somehow, Sandor knew that was _not_ what Sansa wanted to say.

"You have no duty to me," he murmured slowly, hoping he was not shooting too far off the target.

"No," she said, "but can you still love me a bit if I am… If I am not a real woman? If I can never lay on my back and be one?"

"What? Did you think I can just stop?" he asked, bewildered. She was a fool if she believed that. "You are as you are," he said, pointed at his face, "As am I."

"Thank the gods," Sansa said for the third time that day and gently kissed his forehead, showering him with her damp tresses as she did so. Smelling of waterfall high up in the mountains. "We are three days ride away from the Gates of the Moon. If that knight is your brother, you should rest as much as you can. I will take care of you."

He both craved that Sansa would nurse him to health and loathed it. He didn't want a mother's love. Besides, there was no time. They had to go.

"No, Sansa, listen," he had to make her see it this time. "We should leave when we next make camp. I will be as good as new after a good night's sleep," he said bluntly. "I'll steal horses and we'll go. I might be able to kill Gregor for you, but then what? As if men will ever leave you alone, even if that is your wish. They will find you some husband and he will take what is his by rights."

"Go where? To do what?" Sansa asked, frowning. A tiny, vertical, tight line appeared just above her nose and between her eyes, adding a touch of life to her perfect, chiselled beauty.

He had never thought that far. He supposed he would take Sansa somewhere safe _._ But now that she was asking, he had to admit that the list of good places for her was painfully thin. Winterfell was taken from the Starks. Their former bannermen would probably betray her. Essos was far and not a better place than Westeros. From what Sandor heard first hand, it offered more opportunities for a sellsword than for a lady.

"How far before we are dead of hunger or illness, or caught? No, Sandor," Sansa killed his hopes of them travelling together with a simple truth, but she also said…

"Say it again," he demanded, giddy, feverish, happy as he was in the morning.

"What?"

"My name," he was not ashamed of asking for it now. Fever and strongwine together took away any humiliation he had ever felt about demanding love.

"Sandor," she said warmly, and smiled as if she had never been angry with him.

"It's the best thing I've ever heard," he said, "you saying my name."

She pulled a loose hair out of his eyes, beamed, pursed her lips.

"Wait," he remembered something else, "was I hearing voices or did you just tell Yohn Royce that I was some bloody ser?"

"Sandor," she repeated for the third time, taking his hand. "We had to tell him something. I do not know how he thinks of you, but you have to forgive me if I doubt that he has high regard for your person. You… your reputation is what it is. As a _knight_ who rescued Lord Arryn and myself, you have good reason to travel with us, rather than be left here with a little gold for your trouble. Robin was most adamant that you should go and compete as his champion, you see," she was very nervous now, spying on him for reaction.

"Don't tell," he interrupted, "he told them I was-"

"The Winged Knight, yes," Sansa exhaled. "That you were coming down for the tourney, from the top of the Giant's Lance where you normally dwell with his ancestors, the true giants, and that you saved us on your way. The Winged Knight… It's his favourite bedtime tale and it's all my fault. That one always calmed him down when he wanted to suck on my breasts, mistaking me for his late lady mother. I couldn't stand that. So I told him stories."

Sandor would laugh if his head had not hurt. "Will you tell me a pretty story, to stop me from doing the same?"

Sansa blushed. "It is not the same," she said weakly and looked away.

He was tempted to ask how that felt for her, if he sucked and bit her breasts. Why not, if he had to answer questions about love! _Better not._ The dog was back into Sansa's good graces for the day and his heart was at ease.

"But please, let me finish," she recollected herself. "The tourney…It seems that… it seems that Ser Robert Strong announced the tourney would go on as planned and that he would take part. He said that.. that he was told to do so by the Seven."

"Now that is ridiculous," Sandor said gruffly, coughed, and found his usual rasp back with difficulty. "Gregor never believed in any gods. Much like I. We should _leave._ "

"No, Sandor," his love disagreed with him in a most tender way. "You may call me a stupid bird, but I don't think we should go. We have to stay and be cleverer than the rest… and find a place for us to spend the winter if we can… If we cannot…"

"We will die," he finished her thought.

"But not just yet," Sansa said firmly, squeezing his hand.

"Not yet," he was forced to agree.

"Sleep, please," she asked.

"If you'll ask me to kiss you when I wake," he could not help adding.

Sansa grabbed his ugly head and cradled it.

"Shhhhh!" she hushed him, mothered him, caressed his face.

"This is… quite lovely," he said cautiously, repeating her words from the lake in the mountains, not having his own for a moment like this.

The dog was content to rub his mug in Sansa's pretty hands, while being nursed into much needed sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to SassyEggs, WTFic, blueSands, TopShelfCrazy, Mymimble and ladysnotdead for commenting on the last chapter. Much appreciated. 
> 
> Sorry for not commenting back. 
> 
> Anyone has a question that needs answering is welcome to PM me on ffnet. Thank you for understanding.
> 
> Next one will be Sansa POV. Hope this is ok.
> 
> I estimate 20 to 25 chapters in total. Slow updates. Sorry about that.


	13. Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always I have to thank TopShelfCrazy for helping me with the language and the clarity of the text. Thank you :-))

“The Hound is dead, Sandor is at rest.” Elder Brother, ASOIAF.

 

**Thirteen**

The paper gaped empty and pristinely white, more maidenly than Sansa. The quill quivered in her hands. Her mother would know what a true lady should write. How not to promise too little… Nor too much. She began her composition, nervously so.

_Lord Varys…_

Despite the tremor in her fingers, Sansa’s letters appeared orderly and neat. Perfectly shaped and angled, much like her stitches. Maester Luwin would be proud. She wondered how he died when Theon burned Winterfell and if his passing was very painful. She wondered how much her beheading would hurt if she was delivered to Cersei and given to Ser Ilyn Payne. _No more lies,_ she realised with relief, _in death there would be no more lies._

_But what would there be?_

Fear of dying seized her; it always did after a moment. She would never be a noble heroine from the songs, choosing to end the injustice and the unhappiness of her existence. She grasped the quill firmly and thought of a suitable truth.

_Lord Varys,_

_I thank you for your letter and your kind offer. I am honoured by your noble proposition. Yet I cannot provide you with any answer in good faith. I expect I should soon be taken back to the capital as a prisoner of Ser Robert Strong of the Kingsguard. I do not know the brave knight nor how he regards maidenly virtue on his travels, nor what shall become of me once I have reached my destination. I fear you may be too late, my lord. Only an intervention of a higher force at the Gates of the Moon could now save me from that destiny. I have five days at most, before my return journey begins, the duration of the tourney in which gracious Ser Robert is also taking part. I regret not being free to decide about your kind offer._

_Respectfully,_

_Lady Sansa of the House Stark_

Every word was hollow. She read the letter three more times. _You should say yes if you want help. If you want them to send here the living dragon as they said._ She was tempted to write another one, promise to marry this handsome _prince_ and beg for his help. _Someone save me. Please._

 _No._ Sansa vehemently denied the notion. She would not promise to marry anyone in exchange for mere words. She was older now and didn’t believe she could be saved. Life… life was not a song. But maybe, maybe she could live for a while longer. She would like that very much now.

 _If this prince is serious about his proposal, he or those who favour his cause should act._ She did not know if the thought belonged to Lord Baelish, to her Lady Mother or if it was her own. Tears threatened to flood her eyes from not knowing.

Sansa folded the letter before she could change her mind. She had no seal so she drew a miniature, crudely executed head of a direwolf in its place. _I should draw a bird, an empty-headed one._ The effort reminded her of another lady’s occupation she excelled in when she was only one and ten. She doubted now that this had ever been true. It must have been just another flattery she was told for being a high lord’s daughter; compliments were due to her. She would sigh and lower her eyes and believe them all. Talented or not, she had never written poetry since she left Winterfell. As a girl, she wrote about gentle, pretty animals and beautiful, noble lords and ladies exchanging pleasantries.

She took a clean sheet of paper from the maester’s supplies, stared at its pure whiteness and wondered if she was soiled or not by sharing a man’s bed despite _not_ lying with him. _Yet._ Every silent memory of her woman’s place touching Sandor’s manhood at different angles held an exclusive, illicit wish to ruin herself further. There had been pain whenever her opening stretched too much as she moved up and down the sweet hardness probing her folds. It meant she should not go any further, if she did not want to be… properly… No, the ugly word did not bear thinking! Yet she kept wondering what was behind the pain. More pain or something else entirely? A different kind of gratification…

The second time she dared explore the… the _correspondence_ that seemed to exist between hers and Sandor's body, Sansa expected it to end as the first time. In a continuously wonderful and unique sensation she imagined would go on and on. She'd never thought there would be a… an _ascension_ . Most of all, she had never expected to almost fall apart from the extremely brief, ravishing joy she experienced at the end, with their bodies touching _there,_ with her being _almost_ seated on him. She had thought of his large form around her, _supporting her_ , instead of holding her down. She did not dare look down at the place where they touched, but she imagined it vaguely in her head; her pale thighs widening over his… cock. The most improper word she thought of pushed her over the edge. She had to stop. Immediately. She hung on him as a scrap of silk, discarded after a gown was made; too soft and limp. She _bit_ him to stop the keening sound that rose in her chest, wishing to leave. She was too afraid to hear it. Later, she was ashamed about the bite. But always far, far less than she felt she _should_ be.

What he did to himself with his hand, for his   _pleasure,_ he said, well, it was unseemly, but it didn't repulse Sansa as she feared. It merely _disturbed_ her, in a very peculiar way she could not describe. Later, when they lay in bed together, Sandor was instantly asleep. Sansa remained alert for long hours, feeling very good and very awake, utterly unable to close her eyes.

And yet, every time she found herself lying _under_ him, Sansa's wish to feel Sandor's body on hers vanished as if it had never existed, as though he had never visited her dreams. Cold and stiff, she waited, for any intrusion to be inflicted upon her to end. She closed her eyes and was twelve again, reliving her most horrible memories.

Her golden prince was a cruel tyrant and she did not want to have his babies. She did not. She was pinned to her bed by a huge, drunken man. She had never done anything to displease him and yet she felt his knife twisting on her throat. She sang weakly, waiting to die. She could no longer remember their first kiss. Sansa wanted to disappear and let her mother comb her hair. But Mother was dead and could not help her. No one could.

On an instinct, Sansa began filling the empty paper with new words, carefully avoiding her past memories, considering only her brief time with Sandor in the Eyrie.

 _Too short a stay._ The regret was unfamiliar and pungent, hurting her differently than any of her previous losses.

They hung together on a chain from the sky. Sandor’s eyes were of the most intense, memorable grey in existence, and Sansa wanted to smile at him forever. She had forgotten her anger at him for giving her that most unwanted _kiss_ on her most secret place. She never looked down into the mist, never thought of falling. He was _soaked_ from passing through the waterfall, yet she welcomed his warmly wet embrace.

 _We are beautiful together,_ Sansa decided on a whim _,_ writing on. Her letters became less well shaped. The line they formed curved slightly up from left to right. As a child, Sansa had preferred a strict form in her attempts at poetry, regular stanzas and verses where every syllable was counted. Not so now. Swiftly, she wrote.

 

_You challenged the wind and the mountain;_

_You braved the mist and the fury of water._

_Yet I ran from you into the past,_

_I hid in the valley of my losses,_

_frozen in ice, chained in a dungeon;_

_a bastard, a servant, a noble slave_

_I could not love you._

_I could not stay._

 

_Golden and soft, the autumn is at the end,_

_The day is dwindling into a long night._

_I shall not run now, no, I shall wait._

_So wake up, do not leave me,_

_Put your arms around me,_

_Tell me what love is,_

_Let me remember,_

_Let me forget._

 

She was so engrossed with finishing the last two verses that she did not see Yohn Royce’s maester coming to her, or, rather, entering his own tent, carrying a platter with his supper.

Sansa rapidly folded her attempt at poetry and hid it in her bodice next to Varys’ treasonous letter and her clumsy answer to it. The Hound… Sandor would laugh at her if he knew. And she would hate him if he mocked her for this. It was only a poem, in a free style from Essos, invented by the runaway slaves from old Valyria.  Sansa did not comprehend it as a child. She found both the form and the emotion too simple. The former slaves lamented for their family members who had stayed behind. They sang about waiting, about running, about loss. At times, they had hope. The sad intensity of it all frightened Sansa. Now… the style came to her naturally… and a man had inspired it. She didn't want to hate him.

She…

“My lady,” Maester Gurn asked with suspicion. “How can I be of any assistance if I may ask?”

“I would need a raven, my lord. To carry a letter.”

“I was not told,” the maester was very brusque.

“Lord Royce is busy supping with Lady Waynwood, surely he forgot to mention it,” Sansa would not yield easily when she wanted something. She needed to send that letter to Lord Varys now.

“I’ll ask him about it later.”

Sansa had no time for this. “I shall go and ask him now. For the second time. I am sorry to have troubled you. You can expect me back with Bronze Yohn in a moment,” she stressed the familiarity with the nobleman she did not possess at all. She turned to leave.

“No, wait.”

“Yes, my lord?”

A black bird was violently pushed into her hands, claws digging into her palms. Sansa grabbed it at its  feather-covered black back, keeping the restless raven away from her gown.

“Do as you wish. I haven't helped you. But I’d rather you not disturb his lordship in case you are telling the truth.” Sansa had never met a more mistrustful or a more imprudent man. For all he knew, she could invite an army of savage northmen to his lord’s doorstep. And in the time he was away, Sansa could read twice Lord Royce's letter to Runestone, asking for more men, left open on the table.

“You are wise, my lord, as your chain shows,” she said as seriously as she could. “May I ask how the Winged Knight fares today?”

“He sleeps. Lord Arryn requested he be accommodated in his lordship’s pavilion for the night.”

Since they met Bronze Yohn and his party two evenings ago, Sandor only slept and sweated, not knowing who or where he was. A few strong men helped the maester clean him and change him. Sansa gave him water. He thrashed against any other hand that tried to open his visor and touch his face. The occurrence made Sansa feel… needed. Important. She relished every cup of water she gave him as a small victory.

On the first day of travel, Sansa was made to ride some awful, stinky horse. She remained sleepless at night, fretting about her fate, in a miserable tiny tent put at the disposition of the Lady Stark. It smelled of stables. On the second day, she pleaded being sore and journeyed on the wain with Sandor. She daydreamed about when he spoke to her of his love... It was so unlike him to do so, yet he did it when she asked… ill as he was. Moreover, he _accepted_ her care in his weakness, instead of sending her away as a silly bird.  But he was out of her reach now, in the clutches of fever. Exhausted, Sansa drowsed, postponing any action concerning their predicament until Sandor woke. He never did.

Now, she had to do what she could. On the next day, they would arrive at the Gates of the Moon before the midday meal. This was her last chance to write to Varys and speak to Lord Yohn about her precarious position.

“How do you tell the bird where to go?” she inquired from the maester.

“You just do. They go. The children of the forest taught them the language of men,” the chain-adorned man informed dryly, ending the conversation.

Sansa was pushed out of the tent with the bird of ill omen, and without any further instruction. Outside, exposed to the noise of the setting of the camp, she had difficulty to believe in the raven's wisdom. She tied the missive to its leg with a brown ribbon from her gown, and whispered to the bird where to take it. Dark wings fluttered, disappeared.

Lady Waynwood was not the only one visiting. Sansa was to share her own supper with Myranda Royce in the smelly mockery of a tent she was awarded. She was still not able to call her Randa to her face, as the older woman wished.

The meal was dried beef and hard black bread tasting of nothing. Myranda turned it over on her platter and left it untouched. Likewise, Sansa lacked any appetite.

“My father sends his regards,” Randa finally began. “He was devastated when the servants returned without you. Such a _dreadful_ accident with the winch. He hasn't stopped praying for you and Robin since then, to be sure-

 _Yes,_ Sansa thought, _he prayed for our death._

 _"-_ it’s not the first time this has happened in winter, that the basket falls down-"

 _So he thought we didn't even reach the Eyrie._ Nestor Royce apparently had a soft heart. He had planned for Sansa and Robin to die from the consequences of the fall, and not from hunger.

“Dreadful accident indeed,” Sansa was forced to agree, not lying. “Lord Arryn understands,” she offered.

"Good," Randa said with palpable relief, "for if he spoke to Bronze Yohn about any of his misgivings…”

“He has nothing but words of love and respect for your father,” Sansa reassured her and changed the topic of conversation. "How are the knights who will fight for a place in Robin's guard? You must have seen the rest of them coming."

"Handsome," Randa was happy to inform. "I had a different one in my bed every night. And out of it. I even tried to talk to this… Ser Robert Strong. But he never said a word.”

“Wouldn't that hurt terribly? A man of his size?” the words flied out of Sansa's mouth.

“Why now? If a woman wants it, and knows what she's doing, Ser Robert Strong can prove quite delicious with his _size._ Though at times smaller men are better lovers. They try to make up for what they lack in nether regions.”

"How?" a whisper left Sansa’s lips unbidden.

Myranda laughed. “You were married, Lady Stark. Or should I say Lady Lannister? Why isn’t anyone using that name? Didn't you learn how to use the dwarf's finger to your satisfaction?”

“My lord husband did not lack for anything in nether regions,” Sansa gave a courteous answer to the unseemly question, suppressing the disgust at her memory of Tyrion.

Randa talked on, undeterred. “I surely know how to help myself to a man's cock to have my pleasure…”

_Was that what I did to Sandor? Was I… helping myself?_

The notion seemed terribly ugly and shameful while everything she and Sandor did in bed had been beautiful.

_Except..._

She never wanted him to kiss her down _there,_ ever again. That sensation made her wild. She squirmed and squeezed her legs to resist him, but she could not, not when he kept them open. His attention was too overwhelming, almost to the point that it hurt her. Yet it was not bad, it was… Her thighs began shaking, and she just _knew_ that her entire body would follow. She was about to experience something strong, and she could not let herself go. She would not know herself anymore if she allowed this. She would burst. She could not control the movement of his lips on her woman's place as she had done with her own body when sliding over his manhood. Out of her mind, she hit Sandor and scratched his head until he thankfully stopped. Sansa barely preserved the last shreds of her dignity. She had been so _furious_ with him.

 _Love is poison,_ the queen had said and maybe she was right. The sensation of the dry flesh of his scars and the wet circling of his tongue on her bottom lips was worse than Sansa imagined any poison to be; sweet and yet unbearable at the same time. Sansa never wanted to experience it again.

“Lady Stark, you surely look as if you have never seen a man’s cock. Have I given offence?" Randa inquired almost chastely. She would have never asked Lady Alayne,  the bastard, if she minded such remark.

"No," Sansa said primly, "not at all. But I was married only for a little while. I have not yet grown fully accustomed to the duties of a wife. May I be excused, please? I am exhausted from the day's journey."

Sansa didn't wait for the answer. She left Randa and the stinky tent, needing to find Bronze Yohn. She pulled the laces of her bodice too tight so that her dress seemed too small. As a result, the shape of her breasts became better visible. The guards predictably leered at her and said nothing when she slipped into Bronze Yohn's tent. Sansa carefully loosened her dress again before approaching his lordship's table. It wouldn't do to let it fall down, and she could not tie it back so very well by herself. Lady Waynwood was still there.

"Lady… Sansa," Anya said. "I am pleased to see you. And sad about the order for your apprehension."

"I am happy to see you here together with Lord Royce, Lady Waynwood," Sansa said pleasantly. "Let me assure you that I had nothing to do with King Joffrey's death. I loved the king. A just trial in the capital will surely prove my innocence."

"But surely, if Lord Baelish hid you from the crown for the love of Lady Lysa, you-"

 _For the love of my mother,_ Sansa thought, _and for his own purposes._ She never knew what they were exactly, but she was glad that they died with him. "Late Lord Protector trusted me because he suspected who _was_ involved in this heinous crime, not because he knew I had any part in it," she stated calmly. She did not kill Joffrey. _Not on purpose._

"Who?" Bronze Yohn asked as a hawk.

"Alas, Lord Baelish died prematurely," Sansa said, "he didn’t find it necessary to burden a young highborn lady he was protecting with this sensitive information."

"Harry cannot shield you by marriage against the king's will, you must be aware of this, sweetling," Lady Waynwood said in a motherly tone. "The knights of the Vale shall not challenge the crown."

"To be sure, the Vale is loyal to good King Tommen," Sansa said, full of understanding for Harry's trouble. "And you must be aware that I am already married." She wanted to marry Harry much less than this unknown prince Varys was offering. At least she had never seen him, and she already knew Harry was horrible. Deep down, she didn't want to marry. But her choice in the matter would probably be limited, so it made no sense to dwell on her wishes in that regard.

Sansa did not come to Lord Royce to discuss her marriage prospects. She reminded herself of her purpose and continued speaking with caution. "Also, the safety of my cousin Lord Arryn is foremost on my mind." She allowed a calculated tremor in her voice and lowered her eyes.

"Yes?" Bronze Yohn was irritated. "What do you mean?"

 _My lady,_ Sansa added inwardly. Would it cost them that much to offer the queen's prisoner a simple courtesy? Quietly, she poured half-lies into their avid ears. As far as she knew, she could be telling the truth. "They say that this knight, Ser Robert Strong, is as tall as only one other knight in the Seven Kingdoms who is dead now."

"Who?" Lord Royce thundered.

"Ser Gregor Clegane, honourable bannerman of the House Lannister of whom many t… tales are told. I… I heard from my father that Aunt Lysa, that is, late Lady Arryn, accused our gracious Queen Regent of poisoning her husband, Lord Jon Arryn." In truth, Sansa had heard of this just before Littlefinger pushed Aunt Lysa through the Moon Door. Later on she frequently wondered if her real father knew any of it.

She dared go on, into the area of pure suppositions. "It is possible that the queen knows this. With that in mind, would it be beyond imaginable that the queen had sent Ser Gregor to the Vale under the disguise of the white blazon of the Kingsguard, not only to bring me back, but also to make Robert answer for his mother's treason?"

"Robert is a child! He committed no crime! She can't accuse him for his mother's ramblings," Lady Waynwood protested more than necessary. Sweetrobin's demise would favour Harry and herself.

"Yes, an innocent child", Sansa said sweetly, hating herself. "Just like the little son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen… What was his name? Aegon?"

"Cleganes are specially ruthless, I'll give you that," Bronze Yohn said thoughtfully, considering Sansa's words. "Ser Gregor's younger brother is leading a band of outlaws now, after deserting from the Kingsguard. They turned to ashes the city of Saltpans. The Hound raped a girl of twelve there. He crushed her with his armour as he did that. His men cut off her nose and nipples later on."

Sansa's breathing stopped. "When was that? I have never heard about it," she observed. "How dreadful," she added weakly. She painfully remembered being twelve and alone in a lion's den. _He pinned me to the bed wearing full body armour…_

"My pardons," Bronze Yohn finally remembered Sansa was a lady. "The story is not fit for the ears of a young lady such as yourself. It is no wonder that it was never told in your presence. I should have expressed myself more carefully. It was some months ago, I'd say, maybe a year. The girl lived to tell her story. She saw that helm of his, with the snarling dog’s head, all too well. Most likely she'll never forget it…"

 _Nor will I._ Sansa felt as if she had crossed an abyss almost unscathed. Sandor did not have his helm with him now. Anyone could have it, couldn’t they?

"I have seen Ser Gregor ride in the Hand's Tourney, my lord, my lady," Sansa said gravely, setting Saltpans aside for the time being. "And I… I wonder if I shall reach King Landing's alive and with my body intact in his custody. In that tourney, he wanted to cut Ser Loras Tyrell in two only for being angry about losing a joust, and that with Ser Loras being the son of the powerful Warden of the South. What will he not do on queen's command?"

"His little brother stopped him then, I remember," Lord Royce eyed Sansa with shrewd eyes. "I shall think on everything you said. Good night to you now, my lady."

"I would not expect anything less from you, my lord," Sansa said haughtily, hearing the finality in Bronze Yohn’s voice. "My father, Lord Stark," she suddenly stressed her house name, possessed by the need to affirm who she was, "he held your wisdom in highest esteem."

Sansa had never heard what her father thought of Bronze Yohn, but a small flattery might help her cause, or so she hoped. _If the knights and the high lords truly protected the weak, I would not have to be lying._

She bid Lord Royce and Lady Waynwood good night, nearly curtsying as a bastard should, remembering to stay straight at the last moment. Once out, she hurried to Sweetrobin's tent, very nearby, feeling more soiled by the game she was playing now than from the entire day on horseback or from sharing Sandor's bed.

She hadn't seen her boy cousin since they had came down from the mountain. His guards were more serious than Lord Royce's; young, tall and handsome. _The best of the Vale,_ she hoped. Robin might need them before long. She prayed to the gods that what she just said about Ser Gregor and her cousin was only a lie, and not a truth Sansa had accidentally guessed.

As a downside, the two exemplary knights were not leery at all. They stood straight and looked out for any sign of trouble as  young falcons. And Sansa… Sansa did not look her best. She looked like a bastard or a servant in a simple brown dress and cloak. She hadn’t combed her hair properly or had a bath in almost a week.

 _Except in the waterfall._ She nearly laughed hysterically at the thought.

"No one sees his lordship," the taller guard declared.

Sweetrobin had been ill just like Sandor, with the exception that he did talk and annoyed everyone around him. Maester Gurn was probably giving him sweetsleep now or leeching him for bad blood.

"I just want to tell a story to my cousin,” Sansa spoke much louder than usual at the open flap of the tent.

The effect did not tardy. The maester came out, giving Sansa a look full of hatred, and allowed her inside. "Suit yourself," he said. "Tomorrow the boy will be out of my hands. I'll be happier for it."

Perhaps the good maester still didn't eat his supper and that made him pesky, Sansa mused, thrilled to see him leave.

"Alayne! I mean, Sansa," Robert exclaimed with tears in her eyes. "Please, help me" He had leeches on his arms. "Please! I can’t pull them out myself. It hurts so much! Please, I can't sleep with them one more night, I can't…"

Sansa suppressed the impulse to retch on an empty stomach. The worms were already full of blood. "How does the maester do it?" she asked. "Could you show me?"

Robert whined and pointed at the glass jar on the floor, next to a very lordly sleeping pallet. It seemed that Bronze Yohn gave his travel bed to Sweetrobin. This bode well. Maybe he didn't favour Harry the Heir as the new Lord of the Vale, or not as much as everyone believed.

"Lay still, please," Sansa said. When her cousin was shaking as little as possible she put her fingers daintily on the fattest leech and closed her eyes. Petrified, she pulled. It felt as awful as it looked. She looked again. _No amount of pretence will make this any better_ , she rightfully concluded. She dropped the animal into the jar. There were three more and they came out easier.

Robin exhaled as soon as he was free of the blood sucking vermin. Sweetsleep lay untouched on a small table.

"I am shaking," he said accusingly, petulantly, not lying. "Why won't he hold me again?" He gestured at Sandor who lay immobile on a very simple cot in a corner of the tent. His too long legs dusted the floor. Sansa's presence next to him on the wain had not been enough to stir him awake.

"Keep shaking," Sansa said, illuminated. Today she had thought of so many things she could do. Or she was merely very afraid to die.

"What?" Robin asked, perplexed. "I can die if I don't calm down!"

"Please," Sansa said. "Trust me."

Robert looked at her with apprehension, gazed at the sweetsleep he didn't drink, pursed his lips, shook. When the spasms became uncontrollable Sansa half carried him, half dragged him into Sandor's immobile arms and wrapped them around the boy as an armour. Sweetrobin writhed and foamed.

"Will I die, Sansa?" he choked on his words, barely able to speak.

"No," she said, hoping she was right and not just wishful. "You didn't die from this on the mountain."

The boy's eyes turned glassy when the Hound's arms _closed_ around him as they should; flexing independently, muscles rippling of their own accord. Sansa's heart skipped a beat.

The Hound straightened himself, with Robin in his arms, staring at Sansa; a living man, a very dangerous man.

"How long?" he said dryly after a while, taking in the change in his surroundings.

"We have travelled for two days," she informed flatly, wearing her lady's armour. "Tomorrow we'll arrive at the Gates of the Moon."

Robin trembled and shook and shook and shook. Sansa thought of asking the Hound about Saltpans, but she could not.

"Your dog’s helm," she said in the end, unable to keep it in.

"So you know," he said darkly. "I already wondered when that would come out. I was wounded, if you have to know. A bugger saved me, wanted to make a better man out of me, so he buried the Hound, or rather, his helm. Another bugger found it. I can't tell you more. Go find someone else to kill Gregor for you if you don't believe me."

"I've only heard about Saltpans today," Sansa said quietly. "Was it so difficult to just… explain it to me nicely?"

"You don't… you didn't believe it?" He must have seen something that reassured him in her, because his rasp changed from angry to… dazed.

"I was afraid it might be true," Sansa said honestly, "but I did not _believe_ it was true, no. I'm glad I wasn't wrong."

"I could be lying to you," he suggested.

"You said you wouldn't. Are you?" He also said he would die for her, but Sansa felt unable to remind him of that. She hoped he had forgotten that part.

"I wish I was sometimes," the Hound muttered. He was wide awake and healthy, if his initial anger was any indication of it. Sansa was certain he would never talk to her about his love right now, no matter how much she begged him. But…. Robin was very quiet now, breathing deeply in the Hound's arms. They could…

"Come," she said, tugging at one giant fist with slightly hairy knuckles. Together, Sansa and Sandor put the boy to his lavish bed, well-practised in it after only two days of playing at being his parents.

"There are watchful guards on the outside and they are not drinking," Sansa squeezed out, with her heart slowly climbing into her throat. Sandor was up and looked as menacing as ever. He would not pretend to be asleep for her every night when she wished to… feel his body. "We should be silent," she clumsily finished her thought.

"I can do that," he provoked her, "Can you?"

With shaky legs Sansa went to the cot where the Hound had been lying and began undressing. Soon she found that her laces were stuck in a hopeless tangle, from her earlier efforts to adjust them to fit her purposes. Sandor was naked before she was, approached her from the back, hugged her, _kissed_ her shoulders and her back, helped her untie and step out of her filthy dress, manhandling her with both ease and great care. Unlike the handsome guards, he didn't seem to mind that she was barely presentable. Sansa paid good attention to keep the bodice away from him - terribly ashamed that he might find her worthless poem about… about how she felt and where it involved him.

"I am nervous tonight," she said, trying to define the laws of this… game. "I can't… I can't…" She didn't feel up to _helping_ herself to his manhood after hearing Randa's rude remarks about women who knew what they were doing.

"Come, now," he extended his hand in invitation to her, almost courteously. "Just like this. I’ll show you." He seemed to… understand her hesitation.

Like this meant that they lay together face to face, not flushed. There was little space left between them and four hands fighting to reach the other's body; tracing the contours, caressing the skin, gently and less so, skirting, pressing, circling their prey like little falcons before visiting the most unlikely, if not the most improper places. The armpit, the bellybutton, the middle of the spine, the neck just under the ear… Sansa felt… loved.

"What will they do with you in the Gates of the Moon?" he rasped as he touched her _everywhere_ except on her woman's place, and as she strived, studiously, to return the favour; torn between wanting to feel his hands on her body or his body under her hands. She finally gave into all the sensations and was somehow able to feel… both, and more. He was that voice hidden in the shadows that had spoken to her years ago, in the Red Keep. She didn't fully understand half of what he told her, and she hated the other half like everything else in her prison, but there had always been something just between him and her. Something different. He was so very warm now and she could caress him, be caressed by him, forever.

"Will they give you to my brother?" he growled very quietly. "Don't expect me to stand by and watch them this time. I've seen enough of them beating you in the past."

"I don't know," Sansa preferred not to think about her immediate future beyond here and now. "I guess they will keep me guarded, at least until the end of the tourney. The same as ever."

"And you want me to do what? What does the _little bird_ think of as _clever?_ "

"I tried to tell Lord Royce that Ser Robert Strong…  that Ser… that Gregor could be here to kill Sweetrobin." Sandor's brother did not deserve the knightly title, Sansa decided, not even as an empty courtesy.

"Isn't that what they want?"

"Bronze Yohn is not his cousin.” _Like you’re not your brother. You should be able to understand this._ “He has both more honour and pride. He will not wish for the Vale to appear weak in the eyes of the crown even if they are, nor for Robin to be killed by the queen. He may seek to confront Cersei's army and send them away… He is bringing men now and I've heard he has sent for more… Maybe you could… make Gregor angry. Make him commit an atrocity like when he almost killed Ser Loras. Maybe that could help me. Maybe the brave knights of the Vale would then turn against him."

"It could also help me kill Gregor in full respect of the laws, without losing my ugly head for it," Sandor surprisingly agreed.

Sansa impulsively grabbed that ugly head with both of her hands for reassurance that it was there, kissed the top of it, felt the familiar hardness against her stomach as she did that, pressed herself decisively against it, not thinking, sighed.

"Will you ever let me have all of you?" Sandor rasped into her ear, marking a path from under it, over the top of her shoulder and along her side with one finger, ending between her legs, but just not yet on her woman's place, never continuing any further. "Or will you just tease me every night?"

Sansa had no answer for him. She did not know herself. Besides, he was doing his best to tease _her_ tonight by his tender touch. She wanted to spread for him like a flower. She knew she could not by now, and not only because of the demands of propriety. _I'm not a girl anymore, nor a woman. I'm a cripple. At least he didn't tell me he would visit brothels if I never lay down for him willingly._

"Maybe," Sansa said very weakly, answering both of his questions.

She didn't dare straddle him, afraid of how far they would go this time and worse, if she would hate him for it. She didn't want to accidentally invite him, by her inexperience, to do to her anything else men did to women, something unknown she would hate him for. She wanted to… touch and see, not only feel this time. There was one place on him her hands hadn't visited yet.

Curious, she placed her hand on his manhood. Blush crept slowly on her cheeks. The tent was dark. He would not see it. It had felt better between her legs, but it didn't feel unpleasant in her hand at all. She couldn't possibly tell him that. She caressed him tenderly up and down, and all the way down to the little piece of skin between his front and behind. Unpredictably, he jerked from that.

"Tickles," he muttered.

He guided her hand back up until she gripped his manhood firmly into her fist and then he moved against her palm, _pushing_ into it. _As he would in…_ Sansa coloured profusely, imagined him inside her, crossing forever the gates of her pain, felt herself wet from it… His other hand jumped to her cheek, felt it warm from blushing. Instantly, he stiffened, stayed her hand, down there. "Stop," he said, "you don't want to do this. You are making yourself do it."

Maybe he was right. And yet he wasn't. Sansa didn't know.

"Kiss me, will you?" she asked. "On my mouth," she added, not leaving _any_ room to the misunderstanding of her wishes…

His tongue invaded her mouth, deeper than he had ever dared before. After the initial surprise, she found that she didn't mind, kissed him back, kissed him some more, returned her hands to his sweet, ugly head. His scars were scratchy against her skin and his tongue battled with hers. They were flushed now and she thought… she thought he might have been helping himself as they kissed, but she didn't dare look or check it out with her hands. Kissing was good enough for the night. More than good. It was… _beautiful_ as the two of them together. She felt no need for more. She let him do until he stilled, kissed her gently, revisited the curves of her body with that teasing finger of his.

At some point, she was very weary. "I haven't slept that much, you see, not much at all," she complained.

"Did you fret about me?" he asked, sounding as drowsy as she felt, though he had slept for two continuous days.

"Mmm," Sansa mumbled, and then she dozed, naked, in Sandor's giant arms.

xxxxxxxxx

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In the morning, Sandor was fully armoured and helmed.

"What do you say?" he asked with discourteous mocking, pacing up and down, but he didn't sound angry. "Do I look a pretty knight?"

Sansa laughed quietly. "You will fool them all," she said, "You are not fooling me. You still hate it, don't you?"

Sandor shrugged, clinking. "An armour is an armour. This one could fit me better, but it will do as it is. And I'd call myself anything if I can kill Gregor without being trialled for it."

His rasp sounded different through the visor; deeper, more threatening somehow. _It is what everyone saw and heard when he donned the Hound's mask._ Maybe only Sansa knew the whisper in the darkness, the man who spoke about his scars. The notion was… very special.

Robin stirred.

"The _watchful_ guards are asleep," the Hound grated almost _kindly_. "I think you should go to wherever you were supposed to be staying last night."

Sansa dressed rapidly and waited. "I do not think anyone here cares where I stayed," she said and sat in a corner of the tent with her head down; a perfect, obedient lady. It was as she thought. No one was surprised to find her with her cousin when two men-at-arms turned into his servants for the journey barged in to help him dress.

Sandor was bid to ride next to Robert, and Sansa between Randa and Lady Waynwood. Both noblewomen kept a prudent distance from the traitor's daughter. Lord Nestor waited in front of his castle. Four of his house guards came forth to seize Sansa.

"Accompany Lady Sansa Stark from here on," Lord Nestor commanded. Sansa dismounted, walked between them. It was more guards at once than she had ever merited in King's Landing.

_Will they behead me now? Save Cersei some pain?_

But they only let her tread in their middle, directing her respectfully to the lower levels of the castle. At the end of the corridor, a heavy door was open. The room was small and had no window. It smelled vaguely of both the contents of a chamberpot and of lye soap, as though it had been scrubbed clean very recently, or it would have smelled much worse. Lord Nestor did his best to make one of his dungeons suitable for the lady.

A chain hung from the wall. Sandor had chained her in the Eyrie so that she wouldn't run away from him again. He had made sure that the bonds were not too tight. The knights manacled her with far less care for her delicate hands. Sansa remained half standing and half seated.

She wondered if the seeds of what she tried to do would give any fruit and if she was going to be able to see the tourney or simply rot here until it was time to go with Ser Robert Strong.

 _I am well caged now,_ she thought bitterly. She breathed in the stifling air of the dungeon and thought of verses. Of strong and gentle hands on her body. Of deep kisses and a voice rasping with fever. _Pity he was never ill in King's Landing. Only drunk. Or I might have known sooner that he had love for me._

Or if only Sansa was a little bit older, if she had already had her red flower before she left Winterfell! For it was that same rasp that had told her the story of his scars, that same man. It was just that she couldn’t see him, for as much as he forced her to look. Her body could not yet recognise his as good for her, perhaps. It was a wild guess, as all her other thoughts concerning Sandor.

Sansa abandoned her failed thoughts of romance and waited for her destiny to take a new turn as so many times before. She wondered if that's what Father had done as well, only to meet Ice at the end of his days. Did Father know that they murdered him with his own sword? Ser Ilyn obeyed so fast, and the gold cloaks tossed Father on his knees when Joffrey asked for his head. Did it matter? She supposed not.

Sansa couldn't stop thinking about Father now. She could hear the hiss of Ice being drawn, see the blade going down. Her eyes glistened. All her efforts had been in vain. She had never felt more alone.

She didn’t think anyone would ever bring her a much needed bath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to TopShelfCrazy, Gingerpie81, Mymymble, ladysnotdead, darksister, Wolfsdom(Anis), WTFic, Blackby, blueSands and SassyEggs for commenting :-))
> 
> Comments are love and they give me a different perspective on my own text, which is a real gift :-))
> 
> Slow updates :-((
> 
> Any feedback is welcome.


	14. Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the help of my beta, TopShelfCrazy, here is another chapter of this little story.
> 
> A note on the hopefully rather simple plot so far, for the sake of clarity and a summary of circumstances I deem important, especially given the delay between the updates.
> 
> Sandor never knows Sansa is in the Vale in this story beforehand. He merely thinks, assumes and hopes she might be. In this story, he goes on a personal quest for her of his own free will, not based on any information, certainty or sending, not having any fixed expectations from her, with the sole aim to see her again, find her and confess his love.
> 
> In this chapter he will assume (and be right in some of his assumptions again) how Varys and Cersei discovered Sansa's whereabouts.
> 
> Approximately at the same time when Cersei's army led by Ser Robert Strong (Gregor as resurrected by Qyburn) shows up in the Vale, demanding Sansa, Varys sends a letter to LF, containing a proposal for Sansa to marry Aegon, in exchange of Varys/Aegon/dragons' help against Cersei's army. (At that time Sandor has already begun his several days long climb to the Eyrie and a tourney is being organised in the Vale).
> 
> LF tries to negotiate in person with Robert Strong/Gregor who kills him instead of talking. Sansa finds Varys' letter in LF's absence followed by his demise, before Nestor Royce sends her and Sweetrobin to the Eyrie. She answers it herself as she sees fit in order to possibly secure Varys' help, but without definitely agreeing to the proposed marriage alliance.
> 
> There is also a factual error in chapter thirteen, Yohn Royce and Nestor Royce are not brothers, just distant relatives, two branches of the same family, higher and lesser one. I corrected this so they now treat each other as "cousins" here (which seems to be a possibility in asoiaf for almost any relatives and not just for first cousins)
> 
> Warning for extensive mention of leeches (possible gore).

 

"He made a queer sound and it took her a moment to realize he was sobbing. 'And the little bird, your pretty sister, I stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her. I _took_ the bloody song, she never gave it. I meant to take her too. I should have. I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out before leaving her for that dwarf.'" Sandor Clegane the Hound, to Arya Stark, ASOIAF

 

 

**Fourteen**

The Gates of the Moon was one of the most miserable castles the Hound had ever seen, squeezed between its high, damp walls and the huge, forested foot of the Giant's Lance. Sandor rode into the main and probably _only_ courtyard next to Robert Arryn; a masked, helmed shield to yet another boy.

His anger was on the rise; scathing and thundering. There was no telling as to what he could do, and it would not be pretty _._

Sansa was taken away from him.

He did not know, _yet_ , where the gnats of the Vale had put her. The lack of knowledge hurt as though he were now missing a chunk of flesh from his chest, freshly ripped off by a tremendous force, and not only on his bad leg.

Unexpectedly, after the journey up and _down_ the mountain, that leg became _almost_ as good as the healthy one; the crippled muscle strengthened from forced usage, despite not being whole. A small limp would always be distinguishable in his step. The scar looked as ugly as his face, but he was confident about the use of his limb. He would not fight _gallantly_ when he faced Gregor, but neither would he die on its account.

Tall and saddled, after days of walking, the Hound was a monster that returned. And this time he was going to _kill Gregor_.

The Royces had made their little lord visit the tourney grounds immediately upon arrival. The boy had to greet every knight who had come to win wings; a place of honour in his personal guard. Cersei's army camped right under the walls of the castle, with the consequence that the brave knights of the Vale were banished further afield.

There, among the pumpkins, the Hound reclaimed his horse. The handsome, green boy ser, called Redfort or something, was thrilled to see good riddance of Stranger, while he still possessed a nose and all of his fingers. A fresh horse bite adorned his forearm.

A display of prowess in arms of the loyal men of the Vale was served for Lord Arryn's amusement, together with the improvised midday meal in the fields. The Winged Knight who was the Hound for once skipped food. Instead, he beat bloody two out of four guards who _took_ Sansa, and who returned to follow Nestor Royce around, knowing full well as he did it that the men were not at fault. Lesser Royce deserved the beating, but, just like with Joffrey, turning his lordship into pulp would not help the matter sitting on his soul, for as much as it might give him joy.

After the interminable visit, in the ugly courtyard of the even uglier castle, the Hound studied everything and everyone with a sole question on his mind.

_Sansa, where are you?_

He wanted to throw open his inconspicuous, silvery helm and show his frightening face to all. Then he'd laugh at the pitiful lords and their servants and tell them that _he,_ the Hound, and no one else, would challenge Gregor for them and kill him.

At the same time, he harboured another deeply-entrenched wish. He could keep his ugly head down… steal a better sword using the metal stick he had brought down from the Eyrie to intimidate some gnat… Stranger was already back with him… Then, he would find Sansa and take her _anywhere_. The mayhem of the tourney preparations would provide a distraction. They would be too far for the pursuit to catch up with them before anyone noticed they were gone…

The Stranger did not have to wait to do his will.

But neither of the two was what Sansa wanted, was it?

His love had her own voice, sweet and chirping. He'd always ended up hearing it and at times it rang stronger than his own. Sansa had kept him hidden and safe in his illness, just like she had guarded the secret of his burns in the past.

So Sandor did as Sansa wanted, never leaving the little lord's side, waiting, acting with _prudence_ he hated. It came too close to being a gnat and a craven.

_For now._

Robin Arryn would be told sooner or later where the prized prisoner of the crown was to be kept until the end of the bloody tourney.

Then, nothing would stop Sandor from doing something _clever_ on his own. The only place where Sansa was to be confined that night was on his chest.

The castle dimmed in his field of vision. His utmost state of alert declined to what was expected of a guard, never drawing attention to himself. He dismounted and mercilessly left Stranger to the frightened stable hands. Silently, ominously, he followed the Arryn boy.

A window of a memory opened slowly in his mind, in which he woke again with Sansa in his arms. This morning they were naked…

_You were not bothered by us staying so, were you, Sansa?_

Never touching her cunt, never laying her on her back… he decided to try both on purpose, as he had stubbornly practiced jousting and swordsmanship until reaching perfection of movement, despite his too great body height, which was a disadvantage at times, in complex forms of attack and defence. His vague wish to avoid seeing Sansa stiffening from fear of him gave wondrous results. She _responded_ to him eagerly… _caressed_ his ugly skin with devotion, snuggled against him, pressed herself to him, hummed at every brutish touch of his fingers, used to handling weapons and not women.

Sandor had felt as if he was a buggering harpist, given a precious instrument to play. In the end, pleasuring himself against her body, far away from her folds, did not feel like a shame, unlike any of his occasional, thwarted desires concerning beautiful highborn ladies in the distant past, without Sansa in his life. She _embraced_ him and _kissed_ him as he stroked himself. He felt as if he was the most ordinary man in the world, whole and handsome, whose wife had her blood on her, so he had to wait a day or two before taking her…

Except that he was not Sansa's husband; he would never be. It was all an illusion.

But it tasted of truth…

The Hound shook his head, returning fully to the awfulness of the world.

Lords Royce and Lady Waynwood led Robin Arryn to the castle's solar. No one paid any attention to the _knight_ following him. The highborns rarely saw their servants; they were like the headsman's block, fetched and sent away at need.

Just like Sansa claimed, the cousins Royce were as different as the sun and the moon. Nestor was obsequious where Yohn was proud. Two maesters stood there as well, one for each of the two kinsmen, facing each other as a knight and a quintain. Chains of equal length hung around their necks.

Robin watched them all as a frightened hawk, not daring open his mouth, despite being their lord. The Hound stood behind his chair, at the _side_ and not at the centre of the table where a lord should sit by rights.

A young, handsome bugger, with a double sigil on his ugly shield, red and white diamonds for some shitty house of the Vale _and_ the moon and falcon of the Arryns, sat opposite to the little lord, next to the Lady Waynwood, puffed up like a royal peacock. Nestor Royce's daughter, a buxom and not so young lady, who had cheered loudly for the men during the exhibition of strength earlier that day, sat next to the peacock. By the looks of it, she would be happy to either fuck him or marry him, in any order.

Sandor could tell that the little falcon did not like the pretentious bugger with the wrongly coloured cyvasse board on his chest, competing with the great sigil of the Arryns. _Sweetrobin,_ as Sansa would call his lordship, gave the peacock a look Joff would bestow on a petitioner before having him drowned in a barrel of ale for his special pleasure.

 _Come on boy,_ the Hound thought impatiently. _Ask for Sansa. You too are in love with your pretty cousin._ But the Arryn child just stared forward and kept quiet, shaking imperceptibly.

The Royces began disagreeing before the evening meal arrived.

"Ser Robert Strong shall join us shortly and share our table," Nestor told Yohn. "I shall avail myself of this opportunity to inform him that Lady Sansa Stark is securely in the dungeons-"

 _Dungeons?_ The Hound clenched his hands with growing desire for murder and did _nothing_ , listening.

"Are you mad?" Yohn said, not pleased in the least. "Don't you have a bedchamber you can lock?"

"She ran from King's Landing-"

"Because Littlefinger must have arranged for it. Don't be blind, Nestor. There is more to this appearance of the queen's army than we think. The kingdoms may go to war again. And my maester tells me that the Lady Sansa has sent out a _raven_ yesterday. What will you do when another army comes calling on our door, one that she called to herself, if she is really a traitor to the crown? She must have supporters in the North! Last thing we heard, the Boltons were losing it."

"Lord Baelish claimed," the peacock decided to speak up, "that his daughter's brain is as big as a bird's. She probably can't write a letter."

"Do I need to remind you that Lord Baelish's belief in his superior wits is what got him killed? Chopped into pieces I hear?" Lord Royce thundered. "Nestor, if delivering the Lady Sansa to the queen is what you intend to do as lord of this castle, I strongly suggest you do it immediately, and insist that the queen's party leaves, rather than to offend the lady and the North further by the hospitality of your dungeons. Let her supporters follow her South, not knock on our door!"

"Would that I could," Nestor sighed wearily. "Alas, Ser Robert Strong is fasting and praying. He sits with us for every evening meal, but he doesn't eat or speak. He will not leave before competing in the tourney since he was informed there was one. It is the will of the Seven, his servant says, the one who speaks for him. This man wants to leave instantly with Lady Sansa, eager to please the queen, but Ser Robert, he… he listens to the gods in everything. He… he is obsessed by the sacred customs of chivalry as no knight before him had ever been… And I understood from spying on his troops that if the brave ser is thwarted, he will order his army to slaughter us all, and slay half of his own men in anger if they don't do for us fast enough."

"And he has the numbers for that," Bronze Yohn said darkly. "So we continue with the mummery you call the tourney and _hope_ he leaves. For all we know the gods can tell him any time to have us all killed."

This last part sounded every bit like the Gregor Sandor knew. Fasting and praying, however, and the horseshit about the gods and the chivalry… Just like the Hound, Gregor never bothered to sweeten his actions for the weak he butchered, nor did he keep a pet to _speak_ for him. He could grunt his orders all by himself.

 _What did Cersei do to you, brother? Cut your head off and sewed another one on your oxen shoulders? Of someone like the Elder Brother, to make you a more noble royal killer?_ It did seem a tad like the Cersei Sandor knew to attempt something extremely ungodly if it could be done and suited her purposes.

"Maester Colemon," Robert Arryn suddenly called out, petulantly. "I need to be leeched for bad blood! Now! I feel a seizure coming… I will die..." The boy cried copiously and trembled violently.

Sandor was… sad. In barely a few days, he had learned to expect better from the child. The lords and the ladies present bowed obsequiously to their sickly lordling, with looks of harsh contempt for his condition engraved on their faces. Sandor followed his lordship to one of the adjacent rooms, and remained at the door. The maester trod in and closed himself with the Arryn boy.

Waiting, Sandor remembered the snow white tent with the snow white blazon of the Kingsgard. He had passed by it on the tourney grounds, when approaching the Gates of the Moon. Sandor had no doubt that Gregor's cloak and armour were now as brilliantly white as his heart was black.

_Lies, lies, lies… Lies are all there is._

He wished he still had his soot black armour for the occasion of striking his brother down. It would be fitting.

The Stranger would come for Gregor very soon.

It was stupid to expect any help from the boy...

Surprisingly, Robin Arryn opened the door after only a few moments of absence. He still trembled, but… differently... Determined in his ailment, with restless, mad hands, Sweetrobin exited the room where he had been leeched despite the violent protestations of the maester.

"I _hate_ him," Robin whispered to the Hound. "I want to make him fly…. Lock him in! This room has a bolt on the outside. I can't… I'm shaking too much…"

Little lord began his return to the solar. Despite trembling like a leaf, he left a dazed dog behind. Sandor took care of the door as he was bid, and caught up with the boy in three long leaps.

Back amongst his bannermen, Robert Arryn walked straight to the head of the table, to the empty lord's chair between the Royces. He did not sit. Standing, he was almost at the height with Bronze Yohn who was sunken in his chair. The merry conversation over supper immediately stopped.

"If it please you, my lords," Robin whispered and had all their attention despite the quietness of his speech. "I shall now fetch my cousin, the Lady Sansa, and present our sincere pardons to her for the tremendous... misarrangement of her accommodation in this castle. The Winged Knight shall accompany me to ensure my safety, so that she cannot harm me if she is a traitor as you claim, nor run away from the Vale."

"Should you not rest after your ordeal on the mountain, my lord?" Nestor Royce wondered in a fatherly voice.

Sweetrobin turned to leave. "Later, my lords," he uttered weakly, waving to Sandor to accompany him, as seriously as he could with his age and sickness.

Sandor trotted obediently after the frail boy whose bearing was as if he were Joff at the height of his power, amazed at all changes in his demeanour.

 _You will yet become a man, won't you?_ the Hound thought, oddly proud. _It doesn't come easy, I can tell you._

When they were back in the ugly courtyard, Sandor whispered to the boy through the helm. "Have you ever been to the dungeons here?"

"No," the boy replied, continuing to walk straight, with his head held high. "But I guess we'll find them if we look long enough. How many sky cells can there be in this small castle? "

"There is no sky here," the Hound noted pensively. "We should look to the ground, or in a cellar if there is one. Just look as if you know where you are going, boy. Someone of your lord bannermen will soon feel obliged to catch you and take you back to your cage or, much better, show you the way in order to flatter you."

"Thank you," the boy said, "I feel stronger with you behind my back and from listening to your counsel."

The undeserved compliment struck the Hound. He had followed the boy around and talked to him because of Sansa, and not for the boy's sake.

_Mostly, but not entirely._

Sandor _was_ concerned for the boy. That alone made it more difficult to speak to him. At least he would not help make Sweetrobin a monster as he may have done with Joff in his careless years.

When the man and the boy entered the ground level of the castle, before they could search for the cellars, the two-headed animal called lords Royce was predictably one step behind them.

"Surely it is not required-" Nestor said.

"My lord," Yohn interrupted, "I shall bring the Lady Sansa, you can go and rest now."

Lord Arryn continued waddling on wobbly legs, with his head stiff and high. His long hair shone in the light of the torches. All of a sudden it looked as pretty as Sansa's to the Hound.

_That's it boy. Don't give in. Keep walking._

"Show me the way!" the boy commanded, never stopping.

Moments later, they came to the end of a low, damp corridor, facing a locked, heavy, oaken door. Robin Arryn convulsed. He grabbed his sky-blue clad chest, as if in great pain. The Hound regretted he could not hug him to stop the attack in present company.

 _It ends here,_ he thought miserably, _they will carry him back to the maester now or bid me do it._ He eyed the lock. He might be able to break it if he found a smith's hammer.

 _The smith._ The fatherly man who robbed the Hound on his way to the Eyrie spoke of the smith in the Gates of the Moon. _He said the man had blades. I must needs find a better sword…_

Unbelievably, the boy stilled the seizure on his own. "Where is the turnkey?" he asked placidly, pale and calm. "Our supper, Lady Waynwood, cousin Harry and by now the brave Ser Robert are surely waiting for us. It is not polite to leave them alone much longer."

The boy was right. It was never prudent to try Gregor's patience. Old hatred stirred in the Hound's soul, deep and black.

Nestor gaped like an ugly fish. Yohn snorted, stormed away and returned with a poxy gaoler, who immediately opened the cell. Inside, Sansa was chained to the wall so that she could not sit nor stand properly, as a common murderer or raper. Yohn Royce swallowed, having the decency to be embarrassed. The Hound's heart stomped miserably. His suffering was so great that he could not even think of killing anyone. Not right away.

"I didn't quite order this-" Nestor tried saying. "The men must have misunderstood-"

His cousin shut him up with a look that could kill.

Sandor snatched the keys from the turnkey, pushing Nestor roughly to the side as he did so. He had shown quite enough of _prudence_ for the day. It didn't take him long to find the right key. He did his best to avoid staring at Sansa directly as he freed her, in case she… in case she felt indecent. At least she was dressed now, unlike that terrible time when Joffrey almost made her fully naked… Her silky skin was cold and clammy, her blue eyes big and shocked. She was stiff, pointedly so. She did not talk.

The Hound felt dull resentment flooding his guts. The welts on her wrists were tiny and they could have been much worse, but to Sandor they seemed like open, bleeding wounds. His pain at seeing them was as strong as if someone had made deep gashes in his own hands with a rusty blade, poisoning his blood.

She had been chained for a day. It would not be much for a man, but Sansa was a lady. What did she know about it? He expected her to collapse into his arms, but she never did. He was both proud and disappointed by it.

"Cousin Sansa," Lord Arryn said in his thin voice and with his best courtesies, "please, forgive me. I came as soon as I found out. I am sorry for not demanding to know instantly where my bannermen have made you stay. It was an omission that shames me."

Sansa straightened slowly, giving the Hound a very small nod of acknowledgment, before smiling timidly at Sweetrobin and taking her cousin's offered arm.

"Thank you, my lord," she told the boy with poise.

"You shall be provided with the accommodations befitting your station, my lady," Yohn Royce hurried to distinguish himself by insipidness, "until your transfer to the crown can be arranged. This was a sorrowful mistake."

Sansa nodded graciously and the Hound's innards churned… After that first recognition of his presence, she didn't see him anymore. Their time on the mountain was over… She would no longer share his bed.

_Would you, Sansa?_

To Nestor, Bronze Yohn remarked, "My late wife would murder you for not offering a bath to the lady."

"An opportunity to make myself presentable so as not to shame my cousin would be most welcome," Sansa parroted eerily. Her eyes still lacked expression, and she seemed to be holding onto the little lord not to fall.

On the way back to the solar, the Hound sank deep into the pit of his black mood. His love did not walk with him but with the bloody boy. It was not enough to tell himself this was what she _ought_ to do. Just as she would have to marry one day, after he saved her from Gregor. _Maybe_ she would sleep in his bed until then, but she would never be only his.

_Would you, Sansa?_

Since the night before, a burning thought was born in Sandor's calloused mind. New and fresh, it grew stronger, devouring the air in his lungs. It accompanied his habitual anger, but was not diminished by it.

If Sansa accepted Sandor's touch… if she was tempted to feel his body and touch him back… If she found joy with him in ways no other woman had done… in her own way… it _should_ surely be possible for her to find _pleasure_ if they… if he bedded her? If she wanted caresses and kisses with _him_ , why would she not want that part? Women _did_ want to lay with men at times, even the Hound had seen sufficient proof of that... If laying down frightened her, there were other possibilities. He could be behind her. She wouldn't even have to look at him. His cock stirred to action at the thought.

Though… opposite to how she had acted in the past, Sansa now didn't seem to mind his face at all.

There had to be a way to make bedding good for her. It was just that Sandor did not know how to achieve this important victory. The realisation was exacerbating, maddening. His usual approach to women did not work. His head swam with vague notions.

_Stay close. See. Touch. Let her touch you._

_Love her._

Because Sansa wanted to… _hear_ about his love. How it was, what it did to him. And he _talked_ when he was too ill to stay quiet.

He almost sighed like a craven when the door of the solar opened with a clang.

Gregor was waiting for them, fully armoured in white, standing; as tall as Sandor remembered him.

Nestor Royce bowed ceremoniously, Bronze Yohn inclined his head mildly, treading on the limit between a greeting and a curtsy.

Robin waddled to the lord's place with palpable fear in his strange gait, leading Sansa, giving her a second place on his right hand side, letting the Royces take a seat immediately to the left and to the right of him.

"Welcome to the Vale, Ser Robert," Lord Arryn peeped, "I regret being absent so I was not able to greet you sooner."

Another man answered in Gregor's place, with a long grey cloak and the face of a corpse.

"I am Lord Qyburn," he said, "I thank you on behalf of great Ser Robert."

If that man was lord, then Sandor was king. And Ser Robert _was_ Gregor, there was no doubt. A Gregor who did not talk, or showed his face or killed anyone.

_Yet._

The Stranger was always waiting.

"We want the custody of the lady," Qyburn continued impolitely, "Have her brought to Ser Robert's tent."

"Lord Arryn shall decide," Nestor Royce said meanly, probably hoping Gregor would murder the boy for him if his command was countered. Bronze Yohn nodded, serious as a tomb.

"We have many men under your walls," Qyburn reminded. "More than the knights of the Vale who have answered the call for the tourney. And many of ours have fought hard to win spurs while many of yours are newly knighted _squires."_ Here he looked at the peacock, who smiled to everyone, with lack of comprehension for the slight on his face. Yohn Royce went purple from it, but did not say a word.

Gregor definitely had more men. Sandor counted them when visiting the tourney grounds in the morning. But with Bronze Yohn calling for reinforcements, the numbers were to become more equal. Then, anything might happen. The Hound tried to remember exactly how far Runestone was on the maps and if the new men were going to make it to the Gates of the Moon before the end of the jousting folly.

Robin Arryn stood up to look taller. Shaking like a leaf in cold autumn wind, he held his head higher than ever.

 _As high as honour,_ the Hound thought unwittingly.

The boy unbuttoned his doublet, unlaced his tunic, and bared his scrawny chest. His ribs came into view, tiny and visible under thin skin and blue veins. Over his heart and lungs there was a clumsily shaped seven-pointed star… drawn in _leeches_ predating on the boy's body.

 _He had walked with that._ The Hound began to admire the boy. He would be able to do the same, but it was not something he was keen on trying.

Lady Waynwood fainted noisily in her chair, finding it too much for her old age, no doubt.

"Good ser," the boy told Ser Robert in a breaking, lordly voice, sounding every bit like an enchanted hero from Sansa's tale about the real Winged Knight. "You demand a maiden be placed under your protection, but you haven't yet done any brave deed to justify your claim."

"Not a maiden," Qyburn, said, "Sansa Lannister is a woman wedded and bedded."

"Just like brave Ser Robert was advised by the Seven to take part in this tourney, they have whispered to me in secret that the Lady Sansa _Stark_ is a maiden still. And she has already accepted the protection of the Winged Knight by graciously taking him into her service, when she and I were in deadly peril on top of Giant's Lance and he saved our lives. Brave Ser Robert needs to win the tourney should he wish to take over the task of protecting the innocence of her ladyship. The gods will reward their champion…"

"The Queen Regent-" Qyburn began.

"Our gracious queen would never go against the sacred precepts of chivalry, and much less against the will of the gods," the leeched boy said with indignation, scratching one of the seven points of the star on his chest, to better show the _mad_ affection to the Seven his ancestors the Andals were famous for. A leech slid to the ground; drunk, sated.

"The Winged Knight will only hand over his charge to a knight who can best him with honour," his leeched lordship proclaimed. "So that he can rest assured that the lady receives a better protector when his duty to her is done. On the contrary, if he is champion, he will take the lady to the capital himself so that the accusations against her can be examined by the Faith."

The Hound wanted to laugh at the sheer stupidity of the sacred precepts of chivalry and Faith as presented by the boy. Gregor, however, stood attentively in his armour, listening; a completely _incredible_ reaction for the brother Sandor knew.

When Robin was done talking, Gregor grabbed Qyburn harshly by one arm and dragged him over the floor towards the exit. He stormed off as if he was a wild stallion, and Qyburn a prisoner tied to its tail for execution.

"Ser Robert accepts the challenge," Qyburn whined as his body swept the ground.

"Where is your tourney master, Nestor?" Bronze Yohn asked tiredly when Qyburn and Gregor were gone. "We have to see that the draw is such that this-" he tossed Sandor a particularly nasty, suspicious look, "- _Winged Knight_ only meets Ser Robert in the last tilt. This will give us two days of preparation for war instead of one."

"What war?" Nestor dared ask.

His more combative cousin patted Nestor's wide shoulder with a huge fist gauntleted in bronze. Yohn Royce had white hair, but he still stood as tall as the Hound. _Though not as broad, and two times as old,_ Sandor thought, falling to the habit of measuring himself against every possible opponent.

He always had to be strong enough. There had never been anything else for him. No one would protect _him_.

 _Wait_...

_Sansa did._

First the secret of his scars and now of his person, ostracised for what he did in life and much more for what he didn't, but everyone thought he did.

Sansa did not believe it…

How could he not love her?

"Watch and see," Bronze Yohn warned Nestor sharply, "this will come to swords between us and them, no matter how the idiocy of the tourney goes. I don't need the Seven to tell me that."

"Perhaps…" Sansa spoke and all eyes were on her, with those of the young peacock roaming over her chest. "Then perhaps you should seek advice from the old gods instead, Lord Royce. "

"Is this a threat, my lady? Or an offer of an alliance with the North? You should speak plainly to this old man," Bronze Yohn pleaded, not understanding.

"I have merely remembered my Father's gods, my lord, on this day when I was briefly made to share his destiny," Sansa said flatly. "He was a descendant of the First Men as you are, and he waited for his death at the hands of the royal justice in the dungeon under the Red Keep as I was bid do today. Make of my words what you will. I am very weary now, of all conversation. May I be excused and given an opportunity to rest for the remainder of the evening? Or I fear succumbing to exhaustion before the tourney even begins. Who will you then send to the Queen Regent?"

Sansa's words worked miracles on the noble lords and ladies from the Vale; each with different design concerning her person, if Sandor was any judge of the looks they gave her. She was awarded a spacious chamber with a window on the first floor of the castle, and Sandor a smaller room adjacent to it as her guard.

Robin Arryn accompanied them to the door in person. "It's not as awful as it looks," he said with pride, removing fat leeches from his chest, growing more confident with every worm that fell victim to his tiny fingers.

Sansa made a face which said it was every bit as displeasing as it appeared. She walked alone between the Hound and her cousin, a bit slower than usual.

Bronze Yohn's maester ran after them with a jar, collecting the precious animals. Two guards followed at prudent distance - it didn't take long for the talk of the fierceness of the Winged Knight to take root in the castle. Their cowardice pleased the Hound.

"You were so brave, my lord," Sansa told Sweetrobin at the door of her new cage, when he was fully free of leeches. She bent and kissed the top of his head.

"I was, wasn't I?" the boy beamed. "My ancestors cut the Seven-Pointed Star into their chests to glorify the Seven, but I was afraid of doing that. I faint when I see blood."

"You'll see your share of it, boy," the Hound rumbled uselessly. "Best get used to it."

The boy paled. "The gods have protected me," he said, dead serious, "and Father used to say men will believe in anything if you speak about it long enough and with conviction.

"Ser," he nodded to Sandor, as a son might to his father. "Cousin," he smiled at Sansa. "I bid you goodnight."

Then he waved to the maester and the guards to follow him, and left in his sidling, uncertain step.

The bath was already in Sansa's chamber, scalding, smoking. Sandor immediately confined himself next door, pondering Gregor's strange, _knightly_ behaviour, and the mounting necessity to see the smith, get a long tourney lance and a good sword. He tried stubbornly not to think of the milk-coloured lady's body, soaked in hot water. He was almost successful in it when a small knock came from the door between their two rooms.

Sansa was done bathing faster than he would have ever expected.

"Come in," he said as indifferently as he could, seated on a too-small bed, wondering why in seven hells she had to _knock_ when she had seen all of him by now.

 _Maybe not all,_ he realised, belatedly.

She had always pointedly _avoided_ seeing his cock, even when she sought its _touch_ with her folds, while she had entirely forsaken her old habit of skilfully _not_ looking at his face. In short, Sansa acted exactly the opposite to what he was used to from women who _wanted_ to bed him.

He wondered if this was maidenly modesty or profound fear. He didn't know which of the two possibilities frightened _him_ more. Had the dwarf bedded Sansa, Sandor would hate it with all his heart, but it would still make it easier for him to do the same… To try and do better than other men… This way… this way… the prospect of causing her pain terrified him; formed a hurdle he could not cross.

Sansa was now a vision in a clean, dark blue gown, with wet waves of soft brown hair hanging over her shoulders. She sat _next_ to him and looked in front, not at him, lost in her own troubles. The expression in her bright blue eyes was still lifeless, the false one he never wanted; her mask for the court.

 _Don't wear it in here, please._ The ridiculous plea never left his lips though. He was a _man_. He would not beg...

"I had thought that maybe…" she stuttered. "The servants had brought a change of men's clothing as well…"

"I stink, I know," Sandor said curtly, acknowledging the truth. "I'll take care of it."

He scampered to the larger room and slammed the door behind him from pure habit of doing so. He wondered if that also frightened her.

The water was still warm. He removed his armour and undressed swiftly. Naked, he noticed Sansa's dirty brown gown, forgotten on the side, waiting for the servants to take it away. Unreasonably, he felt a need to smell the bodice, just once. Unexpectedly, he found it full of paper. He didn't really open the letter. He did not... It fell open on its own…. From Varys to Baelish… From the Spider to Littlefinger. A marriage offer for Sansa… To a Targaryen prince no less.

Sansa sent a raven, Bronze Yohn had said… She must have said yes… what else… Why wouldn't she?

This letter most likely explained why Cersei's men were here. Either Baelish wrote to Varys, bargaining with Sansa for his personal gain, or Varys found out about Littlefinger's false daughter by a little bird of his own. The Spider had spies in all Seven Kingdoms. After, Varys must have first sold the information to Cersei and then used it to force Baelish into accepting _his_ proposal for Sansa in exchange for help…

Sansa must have written back and accepted to marry this prince… She carried the letter between her teats, hidden as a lover's favour…

The Hound's mood, grim since the morning, blackened further. He would return the letter to Sansa and mock her cruelly. He was leaving. She could wait for this _Aegon_ to kill Gregor for her. With _dragonfire_ no less…

Possessed by cold ire, he began to jam the cursed paper. But, as he did so, another sheet was revealed under it, filled with many lines of perfectly shaped letters, curling slightly upwards.

He read it avidly, believing himself fully ready for another blow of truth that would harden his necessary resolve to leave. He didn't want to kill Sansa nor the prince she had chosen. He told her he wouldn't do it. He could not stay and test the strength of his promise.

Unbelievably, what he read next sounded very pretty, but he didn't recognise any of the platitudes repeated ceaselessly at court… Yes, those words were beautiful… but not empty... They meant something. He committed them to memory as he would a detailed command of his former masters. Surreptitiously, they began reciting themselves in his head, in Sansa's sweet voice.

 

_You challenged the wind and the mountain;_

_You braved the mist and the fury of water._

_Yet I ran from you into the past,_

_I hid in the valley of my losses,_

_frozen in ice, chained in a dungeon;_

_a bastard, a servant, a noble slave_

_I could not love you._

_I could not stay._

 

_Golden and soft, the autumn is at the end,_

_The day is dwindling into a long night._

_I shall not run now, no, I shall wait._

_So wake up, do not leave me,_

_Put your arms around me,_

_Tell me what love is,_

_Let me remember,_

_Let me forget._

 

It was a song alright. There was no doubt about that. And it wasn't about Florian and Jonquil. It was about _him_. Surely no one else was fool enough to brave the waterfall for her.

Sansa wrote him a bloody _poem_. Reading it felt like exquisite sin, a sting on his conscience, a reminder he still had it. Once more, he took a song from her against her will, for she had clearly hidden it from his sight. And what a song it was… It stirred that cruel weakness in him he called love, for not having any other name for it. Love in him responded to her expressions, bathed in them, became cleansed by them, treasured them.

Most unusually, he wanted to burst into words of his own and return the favour, but all mentions he found easily inside himself were those of hatred. For Gregor, for this Targaryen prince Varys was offering. He had no pretty phrases to give her, true or false. Carefully, he placed both papers back into the dirty bodice, trying to ignore them. He washed and changed rapidly, not thinking of her body, but of her song… When he was done, it was his turn to knock on the door between the chambers.

Sansa opened it, flustered, with her hair half-combed.

"You forgot some letters in your gown," he handed her the bodice, feigning indifference to its contents. "Are they from your Northern _allies_ Bronze Yohn is so afraid of?" he lied carefully.

"No," she said, looking into his eyes, not lying to him, but not admitting the truth either.

"Thank you for bringing my _letters_ back," she added and avidly plucked _both_ from among her dirty feathers, sticking them into her clean bodice; arranging the poem _closer_ to her freshly perfumed skin, sighing prettily as she did so. Sandor felt well and truly delusional. _Does this mean that you would rather have me and not the prince? Can't you just tell me that?_

_I am yours, Sansa._

_You do understand that now._

_Don't you?_

He was not a moment too soon in bringing back her precious possessions; three wide-eyed, curious servants burst into the larger room after the perfunctory knocking. In a moment, the bath and all dirty garments were gone. He had to snarl at them from a dark corner or they would have taken his armour too, and he had no other.

"A tourney," Sansa said quietly, sitting once more on the small bed, "I almost can't believe it." Tapping the coverlet next to her with a small, delicate hand, she invited him to retake that place.

Sandor sank next to Sansa; very, very close. Their sides touched.

_Put your arms around me…_

Sneakily, he wrapped his sword arm around her shoulders. Sansa reacted by relaxing and letting her pretty wet head drop sideways until it rested between his shoulder and chest.

"How does it feel?" she whispered, looking up, searching for something in his eyes. "Having to face your brother. You thought him dead."

"Well he isn't. Dead, I mean," the Hound growled quietly in their embrace.

"No," Sansa had to agree, pressing her cheek harder in his fresh tunic, nuzzling him with her skin. She had a scent of spring. He wondered what he smelled of, to her.

"For the first time ever they will be arranging the draw so that we _do_ fight each other in the end," he said bitterly. "I suspect that Tywin must have been paying the tourney masters so that we would never face each other. So that I would never get the chance to _kill_ my brother unless he gave it to me. And he never did."

It was just like Sansa to change conversation at hand when it was not a pretty one. "Will you put your sword between us?" she wondered.

It was what true knights did, Sandor remembered, to preserve the honour of the ladies they protected. And usually they did not press the blade on their lady's throat on any occasion, much less twice, as he had done.

"I'll never put any sword of mine near you," he vowed, but his words, and not hers, sounded like a false platitude for a change.

"Won't you?" She voiced her concern. Or… hope? _But for what?_

"I don't know," he whispered hoarsely. He had been thinking about his _other_ sword in relation to her for years. Today was no exception.

And he did think of killing her, there was no way of going around that truth, as soon as he read that some twat of a prince wanted to marry her.

_Who wouldn't want to marry her?_

Reading the bloody letter, he discovered he merely fooled himself into thinking he did not care for having a wife and some land to call his own. He only imagined he'd be happy if Sansa would have him as her husband's guard, her lover in exchange for his protection…

He wanted to marry Sansa.

The stubborn thought shocked him.

Yet it was no less true...

"I thought I would have to stay in the dungeon like my father," Sansa suddenly confided in him. There was light again and a bit of… _mischief_ in her eyes. "I thought I was prepared for it, but I wasn't. I didn't realise Sweetrobin and you would help me-"

"You wanted clever. Clever does not mean we leave you to rot." Sandor said from his heart. "I was a craven before, with you. Not any more."

Sansa gave him a very enlightened look and began caressing his chest, a bird's touch, a lover's touch.

_Is that the way of it? Is this what we are now? Lovers?_

"I had also not realised," she announced with growing contentment in her voice, "that I have frightened Bronze Yohn so _thoroughly_ … He added the rumours from the North to the lies I served him about Cersei wanting to kill Robin… It feels… odd… that my words can have such power."

"This is just a prettier dungeon, little bird," Sandor gestured at the set of rooms she was given, and finally at his chest, at them together. "You have not achieved much."

"I know," she exhaled and looked up to him, bright-eyed and trusting, almost _lovingly._ "But I shall be happy with the beauty there is in here. There is so little in the world."

"All beauty there is, it's right here," he blurted, meaning it, surprising himself. He kissed the damp crown of her head, hugged her slender frame with both arms.

_Put your arms around me..._

"Would you… comb my hair?" she asked surreptitiously, wriggling out of his embrace, handing him a brush that must have come with the soap and the fresh clothing.

He felt _ridiculous_. Occasionally he had to brush Stranger. _It can't be that different._ Besides, he supposed Sansa would call for maids if he did not do as she bid him, and he... he… he found immense joy in being alone with her.

"Why not?" he said, taking the brush from her hands with the same expression he used when accepting the white cloak of the Kingsguard. He still had no lands as back then, but he might have a woman.

"I've always wanted to touch it," he murmured, freeing her pretty locks from knots and tangles. The softness of it was incredible. They were interrupted once, by a light supper being brought for his lady. The noise in the corridor came just in time for Sandor to take a place in the shadows, at the door, more suitable for a guard, and for her to scurry to the larger room.

He should have gone and found the smith that day, but he didn't, unwilling to leave her side.

 _I hid myself from you…_ she wrote in her poem. She also said she was waiting now...

_How can I find you? What should I do?_

A small flagon of wine was served with the food, golden and too sweet smelling.

"Lies and Arbor Gold," Sansa said wistfully. "I used to like wines from the Arbor."

"Too sugary for me," he grumbled, wondering what she meant.

Sansa poured him a cup and he took it all the same, gulping it down, ashamed of the slurp he made on account of his burned mouth. He would drink poison if she gave it to him. Between them, they rapidly cleaned the platter. He could eat and drink more, having forgotten to do so during the day.

But, more than anything, he wanted to look at Sansa with that faint warmth bubbling inside him, caused by very little wine, as a consequence of a long period of sobriety on the Quiet Isle; both forced upon him and consciously chosen, after the disaster at the inn. He had fought Gregor's men drinking on an empty stomach and he nearly lost his life.

Sansa's wine, unlike his, lasted forever in her glass. Between ladylike sips, she hummed a melody under her voice. She looked at him all the time, and he returned the favour, relaxing. The anger was fully gone from him by the time Sansa's goblet was empty.

They kept drinking each other with their eyes in pleasant silence.

 _Put your arms around me…_ The poem kept haunting him.

The sky was very dark blue when Sandor succumbed to Sansa's beauty. Against his convictions, he pleaded with her.

"Let me touch you," he gasped with need bursting through his mouth like dragonfire. He pawed her breasts through her gown with huge hands, avoiding the poem and the letter in her bodice.

"Let me feel you," he begged for more. On a whim, he kissed her eyes. They snapped closed, but her hands instantly captured his face on both sides. Her lips searched longingly for his.

_Have you been waiting for this too?_

Their lips met, lost and found each other. The kiss was fresh, delicious, tasting as their first one and not one of the many.

"Wear yellow for the tourney, will you?" he asked obsessively against her lips.

"Why yellow?" she wondered in the softest voice he had ever heard in her. "I… I thought of green, as in King's Landing… You had a green cloak on the second day, when you saved Ser Loras. It was beautiful… I mean, it fitted you."

"You remember that?" he marvelled. "I put it on because of you… It reminded me of your _green_ dress from the first day, when I… when I told you about myself… after the feast. I… I would want to see you in yellow," he begged on. "This once."

Her lips nibbled on his, undeterred, devoid of mercy, not giving him an answer.

"Are we not… good together like this? Don't you want more? Don't you _need_ more?" There. He dared ask when kissing was no longer enough for him. She would stiffen now. He waited. She stilled.

"More?" she wondered. "You mean… I wish I knew, Sandor. At times I feel like I do and then I _know_ I don't," she sounded… unhappy again. "You said it yourself once. Everything _frightens_ me."

"That might be so," he noted. "But I've seen you conquer your fears. When… when you wanted to push Joffrey."

"You knew!" she exclaimed, "I didn't think anyone noticed."

"You are neither weak nor stupid," he showered her with words that just came. They would not match her poem but they were something. "You make me forget myself; what I am, what I was. You, and not the Seven, make me want to become someone I am not. Someone I don't recognise. Someone better."

"Do you like that man?"

"I like _you_ ," he snarled.

"It was prettier up there," Sansa breathed out, glancing through the window, at the dark shape of the mountain. Sun shone over the Giant's Lance on the day when they found each other, and the weather on the foot of the mountain was sickeningly grey and cloudy by contrast.

"I couldn't believe when I saw you and Robin coming to that dungeon," she jumped from the weather to the memory of her most recent ordeal. "I thought you would just leave me, as my family had to, having better things to do-"

"Like I did before, when I let them beat you," the Hound said eerily, blaming himself; his voice a ghostlike hum in the dim light. The day was all but gone. The prisoner of the crown was given no candles, and the fire was already dying out in the hearth. The moon was high, full and pale, casting a silver gleam into their world.

"No, Sansa," Sandor shook his mane, almost dry after a bath now. "I might have failed in freeing you today. But I couldn't have done without attempting it… Be happy I didn't kidnap you," he teased her, "and not for not wanting it."

"Why didn't you?" she was challenging him now.

"Because you said we should try and stay. I'm trying."

He pulled the laces of her gown loose, unwrapping her with care he would never have for anything or anyone else. She let him do, let his fingers probe the revealed skin. Occasionally, he followed his hands with a kiss. Her nipples were the only stiff part of her when she was naked as on her name day.

"Trying something else now… Come," he asked, pulling her carefully onto his lap so that her back was turned towards him. His fingers roamed over her breasts and belly. Gently, but decisively, he pushed one hand down her stomach, between her thighs, and spread her folds open with his finger.

She jerked, but did not freeze. "Gods," she mouthed, boneless.

_So far, so good._

His heart beat madly.

He moved his finger up and down her cleft as she did to herself when she wanted to feel his cock with her bottom lips; very, very careful not to dip it into her damp sweetness. He lingered on the surface, probing, finding a more sensitive place near her opening. He drew some moisture from below and brought it there. In response, Sansa let her head fall back on his shoulder and sighed into a kiss he felt obliged to give her at that moment; a very wet one. She found his free hand and put it on her breast, rocked her hips helplessly against his finger and... abandoned their kiss.

"Is this what men always do to women?" she wondered in a deep, warm voice.

"I don't think so," he said, "Men mostly just fuck women. Or kill them. Or both."

He imagined how good it would be if he was sheathed inside her and his balls began to hurt.

"It's even better if… if I touch myself with your… manhood."

"By all means, do it," he said, laying down, freeing himself. "I'm yours."

He didn't have to feign sleep or immobility and she never asked him if she could close her eyes. She climbed over him avidly and found _her_ place on him, kissing him, straddling him, arranging his hands where she wanted them on her body with both natural ease and _need._

"As that first time," she said and her voice broke in the middle of the phrase. Although the courtesy of _please, my lord_ was missing, she sounded as if it was she who was begging now, wanting this badly. He had to answer that call; he had no choice not to.

For him, it was sweet torture. She draped him with her body and rubbed herself on his cock. He could not find his ultimate pleasure. He could not let go of his tension. Almost sober, awake, healthy, rested, somewhat used to the marvel of her body after a few days of sharing a bed, Sandor understood too soon where he should _push_ to end up deep inside, past caring. It was painful not to do it every time she came down on him just at the right angle.

She was unrestrained in pleasuring herself as she knew how, but her movement was not fast nor continuous enough to give him the friction he needed.

Sandor decided to pass the time she required for herself by tasting her body and exploring her limits. He sucked hard on her nipples and stroke her curves firmly. He kissed her as brazenly as he had always wanted, though not as deeply, avoiding any action resembling too much what _he_ wanted badly; the full possession of her body. Spreading her little arse, he felt her back opening and squeezed her buttocks back roughly, pinching them. Finally he bit her in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, knowing he would leave a mark.

He found that... as long as he didn't take her, there were _no_ limits… she seemed to long for any touch he gave her, sighing prettily, moving his hands here and there on a whim, or visiting his _face_ with her hands and mouth.

This realisation almost made him a green boy again, coming against his will. He stilled his hands on the small of her back and realised _he_ had closed his eyes while touching her… from wanting to _feel._

He opened them now.

Sansa's eyes were wide open and warm above him. The courtly mask was erased as if it had never existed. She rose high above him and came down on him in a steady pace of her own. Her full, rounded breasts swung up and down with her body. She approached that angle where they would couple if she continued, almost offering the entrance to her cunt, and moved away, making him gasp sharply. This time, her breath hitched in return.

They both halted brusquely, staring at each other as two conspirators. Redness spread over Sansa's cheeks, visible in pale moonlight streaming in through the window.

She discovered it… She knew now just as he did when they were at the point of _no_ return. She lowered her face close to his and kissed him, rubbing herself very insistently on his member, hissing slightly every time they almost joined properly.

"Love me," he demanded out of nowhere, "love me please."

This was what he wanted, possession was only a means to it. He was not sure he would ever have it. _She could not love him,_ she'd said so in her poem.

Yet he would swear it was this request and not his manly body that had sent her over the edge. Her features spread in a shockingly peaceful expression which was not a smile, but pure bliss. Her lips parted. Her eyes shone like pearls, or unnaturally blue embers of a special kind of fire. Reserve left her, as if she had never been a captive traitor's daughter, nor a child of ice from the cold North. He had never received such look from a woman, smouldering and caring. Her body trembled and sweated and he expected her to fall into the routine of making him stop, maybe bite him, from feeling too much in the throes of her pleasure.

Instead, she calmed and her pretty lips stretched further, forming a delicate grin. She tilted her face to one side and slowly lowered herself on his cock. Her perfect face tensed, glowing less, but she didn't stiffen in her body, nor lose the light in her eyes. She kept gazing at him openly, warmer than ever. Sandor could not take his eyes off her, nor wrap his mind around anything any more, taken by his own sudden pleasure and shock when she descended all the way.

"Is this…?" she asked with unconcealed effort. "Are we…?"

"Yes," he answered in an unnaturally _high_ voice for him, barely capable of a reply. The tightness and the heat of her was incredible, numbing his guilt about _hurting_ her.

"Gods… You look… you look… your eyes... so different… This is…" She sounded as he felt; lost.

He pulled her up and back down on him, showing his need, unable to stay still. She gasped, very sharply. Her body still trembled, _filled_ with him and with her pain, and maybe with the remnant of her pleasure, he did not know.

"It _is_ also a sword," she murmured weakly, staring briefly at the place where they were joined. Soon, her gaze drifted up again. To his buggering face...

"Your eyes," she repeated lovingly. "They are different."

In the haze of his mounting joy, Sandor had the distinct impression that Sansa drowned her pain by looking into his eyes.

"As _you_ want it," she breathed out. "But _never_ on my back."

He gripped her hips selfishly, took control of her movement, added his own. She was light as a feather to him. He had no need to lay her down to do as he pleased.

"I won't be long, I promise you," he murmured back. He wouldn't last in any position, he knew. Not with her, not the first time.

He should have pulled out but he didn't. He just held her gaze and showed her what it was when a man took a woman.

"There," he said when they were done and Sansa rested safely in his arms.

_Have I found you in your hiding place? How much have I hurt you?_

"Was this what you meant? When you asked if I needed more?" she asked in her convoluted way, but her face remained flushed and her look vivid, exposed.

"This and more," he blurted.

They were only at the beginning. And if his arms were strong enough, their end would not come any time soon.

"Same here," she said warmly, kissing the top of one of his shoulders. "This and more. I don't know what all."

"Same here, little bird," he had to agree and chase some very indecent fleeting images from his head.

_A lady would never allow such._

_Would she?_

"Sandor?" she asked in a very muffled voice.

"Aye," he grumbled back, sleepy as a newborn babe.

"What if your brother and Lord Qyburn find out that you are not protecting my maidenly virtue from yourself?"

"I suppose Sweetrobin will have to suffer more visions of the Faith covered with leeches," the Hound said cruelly, back to himself after the wonder he was given.

He realised she was still wide awake when he drifted into sleep, wondering if he would merit another poem after _this_ and what it might say.

xxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxx

Much, much later that night, in the hour of the nightingale, just before dawn, he woke.

Sansa slept peacefully.

Unable to catch sleep again, Sandor began to stroke her hair and the curve of her back.

Contrary to his expectations, he never had to do anything entirely on his own to make Sansa his.

They did it together.

He began thinking of defeating gnats in the tourney and running a flaming sword through Gregor's face.

Finally, he wondered where the little lord slept, all alone, and if he cried in his bed, calling for his mother or for Sansa. And despite that it was so much better _not_ to have him in bed together with Sansa, Sandor…

He owed him one.

Odd guilt blossomed in his chest.

He missed the boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and especially to those who bothered to comment after previous chapter :-))


	15. Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one would ever read this if it wasn't for TopShelfCrazy curing me from being dyslexic and correcting my mistakes. Thank you )))))))

“Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world. Don’t ever believe any different.” Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF

xxx

**Fifteen**

Her pillow was not soft enough, but one had never felt so good or smelled so fine.

Almost like… Lady.

Sansa refused to open her eyes, wishing to cling better to her dreams. She had no claim in them. No one wanted to sentence her to death for a crime she hadn't committed. Her family was alive, her home was whole and she was only Sansa; young and pretty.

Her bedding moved and rumbled softly, in a very deep, conquering voice, spoiling her fantasy.

Her tummy ached dully.

Was she ill?

No, she decidedly was _not_.

It was only the familiar stickiness between her legs and the uncomfortable, blunt ache brought by the moon… She needed to get up and find a cloth or she would soil her sheets. Spurred to action by pure necessity, Sansa blinked unhappily, lifted her tousled head and startled… from the landscape of peaceful scars, snoring as gently as her dead septa once did.

She must have fallen asleep on Sandor's broad chest.

He was so wonderfully calm when he slept. Today was no exception.

Sansa let her head fall back and felt more at ease from his warmth than she ever did in her dreams. His heart was beating under her ear; a steady thud, reassuring and strong.

A bit nervous, she swallowed, remembering her _actions_ from the night before. They looked so unreal in the first light of the new day. She’d allowed Sandor to enter her deeply, as only a husband should. No, she did not just let him...  As every time before, she was overwhelmed by the illicit pleasure and sweet sensation of togetherness she discovered in his arms. But when he begged for her love, her… her heart responded to him…

She was compelled to embrace him and feel his entire body as hard as she could until her pleasure was too much to bear. But it was still not enough for her soul.

The cautious, prudent Sansa who was used to hiding in order to survive would not rest until she completed of her own volition this act of joining which belonged to the marriage bed, challenging the stinging and the burning sensation it brought her. Terribly afraid of strong pain on all other occasions in her life, she had stubbornly endured that one.

She expected her pleasure to be ruined and she was right. But the tender amazement in Sandor’s eyes was a delicious treat she could never imagine; better than any new, interesting expression Sansa spied on him since his gaze had changed and stopped containing only unkempt anger. He was stunned by laying with her, _good and proper,_ as he might say. He looked weak… and yet he was at ease with this, not needing to redress himself to a position of strength or bark at her. A sense of awe and wonder filled Sansa. It was as if he surrendered to her, to them together… Her spirit swam in unknown joy from her confused guessings. The contentment of her heart had spilled over her stretched, tense body and made her first true coupling bearable in return.

_Not only bearable._

_Memorable..._

Different, as everything with him was different than with other men.

_Unforgettable._

_So very, very warm through all the pain._

Contrary to what she was taught, losing her maidenhead did not make Sansa a woman, much like her flowering had been an undesirable and not a magical occurrence; another disgrace she suffered as the queen’s hostage, meaning she could have Joffrey’s babies.

Her father’s head rolling down the stairs of the Great Sept of Baelor marked the first step on Sansa’s way to womanhood, followed by the death of her mother and her brothers. She made more tiny steps, one for every cruelty and deceit she fell victim of, never expecting treason from people.

She did not expect it still. Not everyone was awful.

Sansa became a woman by suffering, and not by marriage.

_Maybe it is like this for everyone. It is only that we are not told..._

The good-natured concern of her parents who withheld the terrible truths of life turned into Sansa’s undoing. At times she wondered what she would teach her own children about the world, the good and the bad in it, the honour and the extreme lack of it, often coming hand in hand.

But the act of joining with Sandor did reveal a previously unknown dimension of her womanhood; just like a new verse was a possibility before it was sung or committed to paper.

Having crossed the frontier of her pain, Sansa told Sandor to do as it pleased him, losing her courage, or perhaps lacking the knowledge to finish what she started. Dismayed by the sharp pain, she still wanted them to continue. To see what it would mean to her and for the two of them.

She didn’t have to say so twice.

Sandor skillfully assumed control of her movements, not taking long, true to his word that he would not. Unbelievably, not even being manhandled made Sansa withdraw inside until it was all over.

Contrary to Sansa’s fears of hating Sandor, just like he hated the world, if he ever pinned her to bed again or forced her, his initiative of wrapping her body around his manhood only made the experience better. It seemed to Sansa, towards the end, that her pain vanished. And maybe it did... She was not certain. Her memory was too fresh and too poignant. Her soul was full of Sandor as it had never been of anyone. She was so awake.

And unsettled, and happy, and imagining how it might be the next time they-

"What?" Sandor rasped gruffly, woken all of a sudden, probably by the excited fluttering of her body from all her new, unbelievable memories. His hands closed over the small of her back. His grip was pleasantly firm, but not iron as it used to be when he caught her in the past, during her illicit night wanderings in the Red Keep.

From the pressure of Sandor’s hands Sansa calmed fully. The pain announcing the arrival of her moonblood was numbed; her momentaneous tremor replaced by idle, relaxed warmth.

"I…" Sansa began and forgot what she wanted to say. Sandor’s facial expression was almost as delightful now as when he pleaded for her love; vibrant and calm, maybe just a little curious and questioning. Reassuring. Confident. Good.

"You what?" he asked again, staring at her with love.  There was no other name for what was in his eyes.

Sansa looked at him intently, feeling more wonderful with every moment.

 _I must be mad,_ she thought. _A week ago I couldn't even remember him properly. And now… Now it is as if he had never left my side. As if his place is right next to me. Not at my feet as Lady, nor in front of my door as a guard. As if I’ve known him forever._

Sansa slowed down her mind and her heart. The change in her concerning him contraried all her expectations from the world, more so than the Hound ever managed to challenge her innocent views in their past. _Her past._ Why did she even think of it as theirs? Well, he had been there, very often even…

_Our past it is._

When she didn't answer his query immediately, she expected a hateful remark. A bitter mocking of her attitude, at least. None ever came.

She… she liked it that way.

The room was still dark, but the castle was waking. The winter days were short and devoid of sunshine. Clamor and clash of metal on metal climbed up from the yard below. The song of steel had already begun and the first fights of the tourney would not tardy.

They could not stay like this.

They would never be able to stay together.

 _And why not?_ Sansa suffered from the uncharacteristically rebellious thought. She was subjugated to so many outrageous, impossible events and propositions concerning her person in her young years. _Nothing_ of what had been done with her since her father was murdered should have been possible, according to the laws and customs of the society she was born to. Yet it had come to pass because men and women in power took initiative, twisted the rules in their favour by superior force, and Sansa was obliged to follow. Why couldn't she do the same?

_Because I have never been strong enough…_

Despite that, she couldn't help thinking that since the impossible and the unlikely always occurred whether she willed it or not, _nothing_ was truly impossible. Not even what _she_ wanted.

To go home.

To be loved and happy.

She was _loved_ now. She could not deny it and she felt warm and soft from it; she felt _better_ from it than she’d ever imagined she could feel in life. Happiness, however, kept eluding her; she was still in danger and her home far away. Yet to say she was not happy would be a great lie. She-

"What is it with you?" Sandor asked for the third time, interrupting her introspection. His hands commenced caressing her back. The nervousness grew in his gaze, shading the other nuances of expression as a single cloud on the clear, summer sky. "No chirping for your dog this morning?"

 _You want chirping,_ she thought carelessly. _Here you go, if it please you, my lord._

"San-dor, San-dor, San-dor," she sang his name wholeheartedly, obediently, playfully. "It's a nice name, didn’t you know?"

He looked at her in disbelief and laughed, making that ugly sound she now knew to be friendly and not mocking _._ To hear it made Sansa feel even better than she already had since he hugged her after waking up.

One of his giant hands flew to her face, traced a fine, precise line from her forehead to her chin bone, repeated the tender gesture. Sansa leaned into it, continuing to enjoy his gaze.

_Why?_

"Why is it… why is it that you won't look away?" he squeezed out in a very uncertain rasp. "Isn't it… Aren't they ugly?"

Sansa could not answer him, not honestly, not fully, not yet, and he didn't deserve any half true answer after what he did for her and Robin on the mountain. They would have never come down from the Eyrie by themselves. Sandor’s scars were as hideous as ever, but she wasn't going to tell him what he already knew.

"I just… can't take my eyes off you," she offered, as if that explained everything. It was the truth, or one part of it. "Isn't that what you always wanted?"

"Yes," he said, "and no…" he added with difficulty, as if that last admission still cost him dearly, despite his abrupt confession of love when they met in the Eyrie, and his demand she loved him back in the middle of their… Sansa lacked words to describe what they did in bed. The words she knew were either too weak or too courteous to express the intensity of it, or too rude, offending the beauty of it.

The nervous curiosity Sandor now exhibited was so great that she had to lean further down and kiss him, completely forgetting that her moonblood was on her, and that she should truly get up and take measures.

It had to be he who ruined the moment when he wished to touch her woman's place in the middle of their latest, wonderful kiss.

"Why didn't you tell?" his question was an exclamation that rang with guilt. He uncovered her and looked between them.  "You are bleeding _quite some_. It’s my fault, I… I… I am bloody large… I should have known… I...!" he could not find words now.

"What are you blaming yourself for?" Sansa blurted. Understanding dawned on her only a moment later. "No, Sandor, you did not cause this. This is my moonblood, I should have gotten up by now and dressed, I… I…" she stuttered.

"Why didn't you?" his bewildered rasp came out unnaturally high. He seemed to be calming down with difficulty, finding it hard to believe her.

"It was too beautiful to get up," she answered fast, and truthfully. "You, us… My head on your heart.” _You in my head._ “I didn't want the day to begin."

"Besides, it is fitting," Sansa announced, and rejoiced inexplicably at her thought, brazenly finding her way back into their embrace. They were both soiled. A little more would not hurt. His arms obediently enclosed her again. _Do you need the same?_

"What is?" he whispered.

"From what you told me before… of how you didn't know how much it takes to…-" Sansa could not use his pertinent, but horribly ugly words.

"-to bed a maiden good and proper, yes," he added, very impatiently.

Sansa marvelled that he paid some attention to the choice of his expressions today, not using the most awful one beginning with f at all. She continued with a burst of joy, "Yesterday we didn't think to look at the bedding for any proof of what we did, and now, with my moonblood… It means I shall never know if I lost my maidenhead to you in the Eyrie by chance, out of my inexperience and curiosity to see if it was different with you than with other men who approached me for… for that reason… or now that we…" Sansa saved herself from having to _say_ what they did by remembering the teachings of her septa. "My septa used to say some highborn ladies did not bleed on their wedding night because they lost their maidenhead from too much riding. I… I am glad it was I who either lost or gave my maidenhead, and not that I was stripped of it by force as with everything else since I left Winterfell. And… it is strange, but after all my various suitors, and with the world fretting so much about the value it has, I am happier _not_ knowing." Sansa felt extremely proud about being able to say _everything_ she meant to, for once, confusing as it might have sounded.

 _I am not a piece of skin that I no longer have between my legs, nor will my claim be conquered by_ **that** _sword of any man..._

_And I still know how to be free and speak the truth as my parents taught me._

She sighed with contentment at the stubbornness of her thoughts.

"But you’ll know it was me," he stated, spying her for reaction.

"Yes," Sansa admitted, seeing no difficulty with that. "But not _only_ you.” _Not regardless of what I wanted and not at all for my claim._ “It was you _and_ it was me.” _And it was so beautiful, every time we touched._

Sandor kissed her soundly when she said that, almost stealing all her air. "Are you certain…" he whispered, "That this is your blood that would’ve come anyway and not my… not me hurting you… by being damn big."

"It is the third year since I flowered, Sandor," Sansa protested, wishing to reassure him. "I am confident of what it is. My blood is no longer a secret to me."

And perhaps it was not. But the many different responses of her body and… and her _soul_ to Sandor still baffled her as a true mystery she wished to unravel and savour.

She took a kiss from him now and melted in it, savouring the challenging taste of his burned lips and the overwhelming heat of their morning embrace. The songs never told that a lady could also steal a kiss…

Sandor didn't seem worried that she might soil him in her condition, so she decided not to fret about it.

Arya always liked being dirty. For the first time, Sansa almost understood her. Maybe Arya and Sandor would get along.

 _San-dor. San-dor. San-dor._ Her soul sang silently and disobediently.

It _was_ a nice name. She didn't lie to him when she said that. It sounded almost as good as Torrhen or Rickard.

Or like… Sansa. A man’s name similar to her own.

_You always surprise me, do you not? By being awful when I don't expect it. Or not being awful when I fully expect you to be. By being you... and loving me nonetheless._

His hands stayed respectfully away from her woman's place but did not miss other parts of her, examining them closely. Her sides, her waist, the soft flesh of her behind, the curving of her breasts. Under, against the bare skin of one of her legs, Sansa felt he was ready to do more. She didn't know if it was possible for a woman to be joined with a man when having her moonblood. She supposed it _might_ be, since there were obviously so many positions that could be used, other than the one with her laying on her back, which she could not handle without freezing in place, described in brief and vague terms by her mother and her septa. The blood did not close her woman’s place, just sully it. Yet the thought of trying anything new in bed now was extremely far-fetched for Sansa. They had done more than enough already. She could not… She needed a break now to gather herself… She had to… she had to call the servants and ask for a new shift and cloths. Well, first she had to put the shift from yesterday back on and return to her own bed.

Saddened by the necessity to do so, she ended their kiss. His gaze immediately lost some of its beauty when she did it and became duller, inscrutable; more like the angry one she was used to.

 _One of us had to be the first one to stop,_ she thought, unhappy about the change, realising… she would be pouting if he would have ended their kiss for any reason, becoming more baffled about her responses to him with every breath she took this morning.

_The anger is still with you, is it not? It is always with you..._

She cupped his face and kissed him again, very sweetly, wishing to confuse _him_ , needing to see him vulnerable as she felt. "I am under your protection, remember, _Winged Knight,_ " she said tenderly, not caring if it offended him, meaning every word of it. "I will wait for this day to end and for you to protect me again. But I fear that if we don't go to break our fast with Robin and show our respect for his decisions, the lords of the Vale might change their mind and imprison me again. Or… surrender me to Gregor, to see if they can make the queen's army leave sooner and without bloodshed."

"Fuck," Sandor said abruptly, returning to his usual language, much to Sansa's disappointment. "I need to find a good sword."

"Don't you need a good lance for a joust?" She wondered.

"Do you remember Gregor using _only_ his lance in a tourney?" The Hound grunted angrily. “Besides, almost any lance will do, provided it is long enough. Even if it isn’t, when it is me holding it on horseback. But a sword should better be heavy enough to meet Gregor’s. I should have the strength to stop him, but I’d rather not face him on foot with a knife for chopping vegetables.”

Gregor had almost hewed Ser Loras in two after losing a tilt. Sandor stopped him with the greatsword. Sansa remembered fearing that Sandor’s blade might break despite that it was as large and as broad as Ice. She chastised herself for not remembering this instantly. She was older now, but she was not clever enough. Not letting anyone _take_ her maidenhead would not save her if she remained stupid.

Maiden or not, she would be married to the politically dominant suitor, not to the most noble one, nor the strongest fighter, nor the one who loved her. Merely to the one who prevailed in the game of thrones, or to the man chosen for Sansa by that unknown victor. Maybe she would be married every year anew, and all her husbands would die before she would have a child whom she could love as the queen told her she would. If Cersei was the winner, she would be put to death.

She shivered and sighed deeply in Sandor's arms.

He had once said that the strong ruled the world. But Father had been strong and was killed all the same. Strong arms were not enough.

"Sansa," Sandor called to her, gently pinching her chin. She had never stopped facing him, but she did become lost in her thoughts. "Where have you gone?"

"I was just thinking," she said, nervous and a bit _angry_ with the world.

_You are right. The world is awful._

_At times._

Sansa refused to believe it was awful all the time. She had to… she just had to strive to be good and she would find her happiness. Like she applied herself in her childhood to becoming a perfect lady. She should go to the tourney. Ser Robert Strong… Gregor… he had to lose. She refused to contemplate that Gregor losing meant Sandor having to kill him, though she knew Gregor deserved punishment.

_For what he did to Sandor, if not for anything else._

To poor Sandor who now lifted Sansa out of his bed and carried her to the bed that should have been hers, and which had remained empty for the night. It was cold and she shivered in it, squeezing her legs to contain the sticky flow. Very soon, Sandor returned dressed, holding out her shift to her.

"Good that I am not small," he said mockingly. "The sheets over there are clean. There’s no need to replace them or hide them. No sign you were in my bed.”

Sansa wondered how he cleaned the blood she noticed he had on his stomach from her. He looked clean from the outside at least, fully dressed and armoured as he could be, in the improvised suit Sansa and Robin gathered for him in the Eyrie. Sansa squeezed her legs harder and decided against asking or knowing. If he did something very unsavoury to make himself presentable, she didn't want to hate him for it. At least he stopped being needlessly upset about his size. She only minded that when he tried to lay on top of her, remembering his angry stance from the night when the sky burned green, and all the other men who would have had their way with her if they could. But as long as this could be avoided, she didn’t mind his height. Much on the contrary, one of the reasons she was repulsed by Tyrion, next to the main reason of him being a _Lannister,_ was that he was short and stunted. This was cruel and discourteous; a true lady would have found it in herself to accept the ugliness of her lord husband. Yet the truth remained - Sandor’s disfigurement had never had the same reviling effect on Sansa.

"I will call the maids," Sandor announced, "and wait until you wish me to accompany you to the little lord."

"Do so, please," Sansa agreed, not wanting to be left alone by him, not on a day after… after he had asked her to love him and she responded to him with all her being, because she could… she could not act any differently… She set aside a nagging thought that Sandor had to go and look for a sword. Surely he could still do that later. He would only face Gregor towards the end of the tourney.

_Maybe in the final tilt._

_Will he then crown me as his Queen of Love and Beauty?_

Sansa decided that he should do this, before chasing the stupid thought about the brave knight and the pretty maiden out of her bird’s head.

Chivalry was nonsense. She was a woman grown and she wasn't even a maiden anymore. Involuntarily, her lips stretched in a broad, unladylike grin. She had to put a hand over her mouth to contain her mirth. She should be worried because one day she would have to marry some lord and lie about being untouched. Her grin broadened, blossomed under her hand. She was unable to worry.

 _It wasn't that painful,_ she told herself and believed it, though it probably was.

Two girls soon invaded her chamber and began fussing about Sansa and the state of the bed she had recently bloodied. They were so annoyingly stupid that she couldn't bring herself to ask them if they had a yellow dress, as Sandor wanted her to wear. She opted to don again the blue dress. She had it on when they began... And it was perfectly clean. She’d worn it so little because… they… she and Sandor undressed almost as soon as he was done bathing. Also, her poem and Lord Varys’ letter were both still in her bodice, and she didn't want the servants to see her removing them, much less chance that they read any of it or stole it. Most likely none could read, but surely one of them would report to Yohn and the other to Nestor Royce about Sansa’s secrets. Before Petyr, resting in peace within the bag in which Gregor put his parts, Sansa could only tell that all her servants in the court had been loyal to the queen, and that she was shunned by the nobles when Father fell out of grace. _Now I can see better the exact moves in the game of thrones and the reasons behind them, but I still can't make my own._

With clean shift and stockings, and a cloth set firmly between her legs, Sansa became terribly _impatient_ to exit her room and be in Sandor's company again. She suddenly needed to verify he was real and that she did not imagine everything, from his arrival to the Eyrie until today.

Gingerly, she stood up. Her first step felt like no other she had made in life… Or maybe like a first step a child makes, amazed that it can walk.

In the ten or twenty steps it took her to exit her chamber, position herself to walk next to Sandor and take his arm, Sansa felt like a new woman.

_Maybe Septa Mordane was right. This changes everything._

Under the familiar pain of her moonblood, there was a new ache between her legs, distinct and weakening, but not in a way her fears always made her fragile. The inner side of her thighs throbbed as it might happen after too long riding, but the muscles affected by the feeling were much higher, closer to her woman's place. She had never felt them before... she… she did not know she had those muscles. Her body… she was marked. Despite the lies she might tell to her future lord husband, her body carried the footprint of what she did...

And despite that the throb was not entirely pleasant, it was not unpleasant either. Every step carried a tangible remembrance of her pleasure and her pain, of Sandor’s manhood scraping her walls, creating an incredible sensation, hurtful, and uniquely awakening... Every step brought back his prayer for love and that singular look in his eyes; her response to his body and… the movement inside her spirit in his direction…

Her heart had gone to him, there was no doubt… whether she willed it or not. It had never gone that way to either Ser Loras or to Joffrey.

Sansa walked and wondered if Sandor could see the difference in her demeanour, if body parts hurt _him_ from what they did, and if she left such a palpable mark on him as he did on her. _Maybe he has a trace of me inside him all the time..._ _because he…_ _loves me..._

_He loves me, he loves me, he loves me._

_He cares not about my claim._

Sansa looked up and smiled very timidly at Sandor. His lips thinned and stretched; his face twitched in a peculiar, controlled fashion, as if he smiled back. With this, he both acknowledged her gesture and hid his feelings from anyone looking. An overwhelming, uncontrolled smile illuminated Sansa’s face from his response.

_So you can be discreet. And clever. Are you cleverer than your silly little bird?_

It just occurred to her that he had to be, or he would have fared far worse at court in the long years he had spent there… if he had been a mindless brute, counting only on his strength and intimidation skills for survival, as he liked to say about himself and as people saw him… If they saw him at all, standing in Joffrey’s shadow, invisible, just like the poor, innocent, traitor’s daughter...

Sansa lifted her head high and walked on, imagining that Sandor's warm gaze pierced her skin as yet another sword, filling her heart with malleable warmth.

_How much will it hurt when we do it again?_

_If we do it again…_ she corrected herself. By the time her moonblood was done she might well be on the road back to King's Landing.

In Nestor Royce's hall, at the Gates of the Moon,  everyone looked at her the same as the day before, when she entered to break her fast. Even Gregor, mute in his Kingsguard armour, and the ugly man who spoke in his stead.

 _They don’t know. Only I know. We know._ The thought made her feel strong and giddy. _No one will know unless I choose to reveal it._

Sandor loomed behind her back now, tall and frightening. Sansa longed to be on her feet again and to suffer the ache in her thighs. She became a woman before this, at a too young age, no doubt, but today she was a changed woman. She would never be the same.

After the first meal of the day, it was time for the tourney. Sansa did not ride to it in a palanquin with walls of yellow silk that coloured the whole world in gold, like when she went to the Hand’s tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole. She walked holding Sweetrobin’s arm, carrying the new, painful sweetness between her thighs and the memory of Sandor's wonderful gaze in her heart. The first tilts before midday meal were not very exciting. The knights were perhaps fewer and poorer than those who had come to the capital to compete. Many faces were familiar nonetheless, so maybe it was Sansa who stopped loving tourneys as much…

Sandor unhorsed all his opponents in a single, savagely precise pass. The onlookers cheered for him, but Sansa began to worry… The people and the nobles… they also cheered for Gregor, and for Lothor Brune; for Yohn Royce and for his handsome good-son Ser Michel Redfort. The people did not care. They… amused themselves. Sansa suspected that Sandor might call his opponents _gnats_ with contempt, and none of them, none of them was Gregor… The success against the lesser knights did not guarantee the outcome of brother's war.

Instead of cheering for the Winged Knight, as everyone called Sandor now, Sansa’s heart kept steadily climbing into her throat and she did not feel strong or changed anymore. She wished she could see Sandor's face, to know if it still contained anything but anger after all the violence needed for jousting, as well as from seeing his brother in the field as his equal, treated like a respectable, honourable knight.

But she could not see Sandor at all, because the listed men had all gone to the tourney grounds after breaking their fast. As the day went on, Sandor's memory faded from her thighs, but it grew in her chest and in her little, bird-like head.

Sansa… she needed a pen and a parchment, terribly so, or she might shatter in a thousand pieces and die an unladylike death before Cersei put her to it. Or maybe she would… _howl_ in the most unseemly way and shock the noble houses of the Vale by her uncivilised customs.

Catching up with Bronze Yohn’s maester before midday meal proved to be an useless endeavour.

“No,” he replied sternly to her query. “No paper nor ravens for you, my lady. You are not to write to anyone anymore. My head is forfeit if I disobey those orders.”

There must have been a new raven that caused those orders, Sansa realised.

“Has Bronze Yohn received a letter concerning my person?” she wondered aloud.

“I don’t know,” the maester screamed and pushed her away. His violent, illogical reaction meant that the answer was yes, no doubt. But how was Sansa to find out what it said and who wrote it? Would Varys reply so fast to her missive? If he did, what did he say? Or was it another unknown ally seeking to lay a hold on her claim?

She searched the sky for the living dragon Varys promised if she married Aegon, but there was none… During midday meal, she turned her food on the plate, unable to eat a single bite, glad that no one directed a word to her. She was once more only a disgraced noblewoman and she was happy for it. The confusion and fear in her mind and heart was such that it would have been most difficult to pursue any civil conversation.

When she and Robin headed back to the tourney grounds for the last tilts of the short winter day, she thought she would cry stupidly. But, when they reached the dais raised for Robin and his entourage, her little cousin surprised her before climbing on the improvised high seat of the Arryns. The real seat was left high up in the mountain, in the now truly impregnable Eyrie. Fresh snow had fallen on the Giant's Lance in the night. No one would climb it or come down from it before spring.

Sweetrobin handed Sansa a paper and a quill, bowing slightly. “Here, cousin, my lady,” he peeped in his thin voice, not befitting his new lordly demeanour. “I have noticed this new omission of courtesy with regard to your needs when you addressed the maester. I shall not abide such rude behaviour in my lands.”

Lord Nestor's small eyes bulged as if they were about to spring from the sockets when Sansa graciously accepted the gift.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said melodiously, beaming. Her spirit turned vivid, churning with verses.

Robert blushed and took his seat as calmly as he could. His hands and shoulders shook, but he did not yet have a fit that day. Maester Colemon was never far from him, with the jar of unhappy, skinny leeches who had not yet had their meal.

Sansa wrote compulsively while they were waiting for the next tilt to began. She did not care about the poetic form, nor the number of syllables in her verses, never stopping to ponder where the style she used came from.

 

_A lifetime of your warmth invading my mind._

_A trace of your arms, your lips, your eyes on mine._

_Your body opening mine, or was it mine embracing yours?_

_I was blind and dreaming._

_Am I asleep still?_

_How can this be?_

_This care that haunts me now,_

_Waiting in my soul,_

_Dwelling in my heart._

_Why is my soul trembling, not rejoicing,_

_In face of your smooth victories?_

_What is in your mind?_

_Your love of me?_

_Or only fresh hatred…?_

 

The tourney master announced Lord Yohn Royce riding against the Winged Knight.

Sansa crumpled her latest, worthless poem in her lap and squeezed the little paper ball with her fists.

 _It will be easy, like with those other… gnats,_ she told herself. Ancient bronze armour with runes of the First Men did not avail Lord Yohn in the Hand’s tourney.

Sansa stared down the lists, carefully measuring her glance to award equal attention to both contenders. Inadvertently, she stood up when doing so, the first time that day, because Ser Uthor, a corpulent knight who fell to Ser Michel before midday meal, obstructed her view. She thought… that Sandor appraised her figure just when she looked away...

On the next moment, it was too late to look back.

The lists were not long as in King’s Landing and Bronze Yohn’s brown horse was almost as spirited as Sandor's black one. Bronze and chestnut clashed against black and silvery grey of Sandor’s armour, stolen from the Arryns for the new Winged Knight, created and anointed by Sweetrobin and Sansa. Lances splintered… And it was the grey rider that remained in dirt after the pass, not the bronze one...

Sansa never sat down. _This is not real, he… he won the Hand’s Tourney, he can't just fall…_

She saw her head rolling under the headsman's blade. No one would now be able to withstand Gregor.

Yohn Royce dismounted and gallantly offered his arm to Sandor so that he could get up. Two grooms tried to approach Sandor’s horse, but he kicked one and nearly bit off the hand of another. Sandor accepted the arm offered, took his horse by the reins and led him off the field without a word.

Gregor… laughed raucously as Sandor once did when Gregor was unhorsed by Ser Loras. It was the first clear, unmistakable sound that ever came from the mouth of the so-called Ser Robert Strong.

The mindless crowd kept cheering for Lord Yohn who pulled off his helm. Under, he was sweaty from the day’s exertion, white-haired and terribly worried. He sized up Gregor differently than the day before, as an opponent he should ride against. He gave a cold look to Sansa and climbed back to the dais, next to Sweetrobin.

“You rode well,” Robin said with poise.

“It wasn't bad,” Yohn retorted, “but it was your Winged Knight who rode a tad worse than before. Had I not seen his previous jousts, I would think him an old man like myself.”

“You both rode well,” Robin judged, twittering boyishly, “but the victory was yours this time, my lord, and it was deserved. My father used to say that men fall from horses in tourneys and only one can win the purse. It is not a battle, where the result is life or death. In another competition the outcome might have been different. I enjoyed the spectacle very much - I have not seen a better pass in this tourney yet. I will toast to the health of both of you over dinner. And the Winged Knight will surely wish you luck for the trials of tomorrow.”

The rest of the duels passed without surprise. Besides Lord Yohn, the three men left for the final tilts on the next day were Ser Michel, Lothor Brune and Gregor. Before everyone returned to the castle, Gregor and his spokesman, Qyburn, approached Sweetrobin. Significantly, today they ignored the Royces when voicing their latest demands.

“The Winged Knight has lost. Hand us the lady now,” Qyburn translated bluntly the wishes of his master.

“He did,” Robert agreed dutifully. “But not to brave Ser Robert, who rode so gallantly. Nor is the tourney over. Ser Robert may yet fall on the morrow. Didn't the gods tell him to take part? His part, as I see it, is not over yet. I swear it by the Seven.”

Gregor laughed again, but his laugh was ominous now and not mocking, and Sansa was afraid for her cousin's life.

She prayed to all the gods that existed that her lie about Gregor being sent both to fetch her _and_ to kill her cousin never became true.

If Sweetrobin was afraid, he hid it well. He nodded to Gregor and his servant and demanded weakly to be carried to the great hall by servants. His body spasmed so much from his illness that he could not walk. Sansa was glad that Robert Arryn was in charge. Sick as he was, he stayed on her side.

As a consequence, Lord Yohn offered Sansa his arm. When she accepted, he purposefully held her in place. His grip was nowhere near as firm as Sandor's, but still too strong to fight. They were the last to depart in the line of the most illustrious nobles of the Vale.

“What are your intentions? Will you have your new allies burn the Vale of Arryn and its crops in winter? Will you take Lord Arryn as hostage? I have treated you kindly-”

“Yes, my lord, you have,” Sansa's instinct was to appease him so that he would let her go. She resented the bronze vambrace squeezing her arm. But before she finished speaking she realised her impulse was wrong. A changed woman, and a brave one at times, Sansa served his lordship the undiluted truth about his _noble_ propositions.

“Yes, my lord, you have treated me kindly,” she repeated, hoping to imitate her father's sternest tone when he dispensed justice from his high seat. “But only as an afterthought and out of fear. I assure you; I shall act with _prudence_ when any other forces arrive. As will you.” It was a fact, but it could be understood as a threat. Sansa stared icily into Lord Royce’s eyes, hoping to underline that second meaning.

He did not reply so she made a step forward, pulling him with her, to see if he would restrain her.

He did not.

Bronze Yohn followed and said curtly, “Prudence is indeed a virtue, my lady. Let us all adhere to it-”

“-and we might live to see another spring,” Sansa completed the thought and graced her companion with a small, dry, courtly smile.

She wondered what news the raven caught by Bronze Yohn had brought, and if it was from Lord Varys. Appearing confident when she was _not_ would come easier if she knew more about who her dangerous allies were and what they would give to her in exchange for her claim. At least she knew what everyone wanted from her; Winterfell and the North. She did not have to wonder about that. Without her claim, she was nothing in the game of thrones. Only Cersei would probably still wish to have her head.

Supper was a quiet, subdued affair. To Sansa’s surprise, her Winged Knight was not there. Both her and Sweetrobin occasionally looked behind their chairs, masking their glances to look like a part of a casual conversation between cousins, but Sandor's striking, hulking figure never appeared.

The only guest who found joy in the feast was Gregor, laughing raucously between the courses. Did he laugh because he recognised the Winged Knight, just like Sandor did him? Or did he merely rejoice because he was now a favourite to win the tourney? Why didn't everyone know Ser Robert was Gregor and unmask his pretence of being Kingsguard? Couldn’t they tell? Or did they all know but just chose to ignore it? Sansa could not decide which attitude was worse.

Sansa quelled her anger by telling herself that, in truth, the people of the Vale did not know either that the Winged Knight was Sandor. Most believed wholeheartedly in a ruse Robin and Sansa invented and perpetuated about their… friend.

No. He was no friend of Sansa’s.

He was-

He was-

She had dreamed of him before he had found her in the Eyrie.

She wished to be left alone so that she could dress as a bastard and go find him. There was no winesink in the Gates of the Moon, but there must be some place where men drank.

Sansa was glad when her cousin had to withdraw to his quarters, too ill to continue feasting, until she realised this meant it would be Lord Yohn and… _Gregor_ taking her to her door. She looked down during the entire stroll, thinking what to say to see good riddance of them. She did not want Gregor standing in front of her door.

Fortunately, her Winged Knight was already occupying the place. She would not have to debase herself and search for him.

_So this is where you went. Why here and not to the supper as everyone else?_

All other losers feasted with the winners, hand in hand. Sandor should have come as well.

“Thank you for your company, my lords,” Sansa cleared her throat, trying her best to send Bronze Yohn and Gregor peacefully away to wherever they slept in the overcrowded castle for the duration of the tourney. ”I shall see you on the morrow.”

She walked into her chamber and closed the door without another word. Nervously, she stood right behind it, waiting for the most desirable sound of two pairs of boots, departing. An eternity went by before they did. She waited some more, for Sandor to enter.

But he did not.

Sick and tired of waiting she opened the door with a clang.

He was there; armoured, _helmed_ and immobile.

“Won't you come in?” she asked in disbelief that she _had_ to ask after their meeting on the mountain, the mad descent from it, and her giving him _everything_ …

Except a declaration of love.

Her manifest affection for him was not tenacious as his love for her seemed to be. But if another man did or said what Sandor did and said with her in the capital, Sansa would have probably gone straight to Cersei. The queen was many things, but she would not tolerate that her precious prisoner was treated so familiarly by one her house guards. Not even by her son’s sworn shield.

With Sandor… Sansa was never offended as much as she should have been. And they always found a way to talk about other, interesting, inoffensive things, after and in-between his bouts of mocking anger. _At least part of the time._ Sansa corrected her eagerness to improve the world by embellishing the events in her head. It became easier to grasp both the truth and her wishes with time. Sandor had been awful to her in the past. The recent days were an exception. He would surely be horrible again.

“Why should I come in?” he barked at her. “Go, smile at Bronze Yohn some more. You did it before the tilt. He has one chance in seven hells to unhorse Gregor. Maybe he needs a special _lady's_ favour to encourage him. You saw that it was not very difficult to-”

“What?” Sansa cried out. _What did he think? That she would… with Yohn Royce…?_ “How can you say this? Do you not… do you not see?”

“I see nothing,” he said darkly. “And neither should you. Go save yourself. You’ve done it before without me. I have lost again.”

The Hound’s pointless anger over his defeat was larger than the Giant's Lance and Sansa was almost afraid of him.

“Lost?” She decided to use Sweetrobin's wisdom on him, not having much of her own where fighting was concerned. “Men fall from horses in tourneys. That is all. You haven't done anything wrong. You played your part in the farce used to delay Gregor before all knights from the Vale are mustered here to chase him away.”

_And maybe, maybe a living dragon will come. What shall I do if that is so and if this… Aegon... demands I marry him…_

She pushed her hand into her bodice. Her composition about Sandor braving the waterfall was still there, together with the little ball of her latest attempts at poetry…

Helpless, she remembered.

_Alyssa's tears…_

Alyssa did not cry so many tears in the end and neither would Sansa. Sansa and Sandor found the place where the waterfall did reach the valley floor, on the path untrodden by human feet. It meant that every sadness had its end, even the sorrow sent by the gods for the sins men committed. In the legend about Alyssa, because of her heartlessness in life, the waterfall of her tears kept falling forever after her death, never touching the ground.

Sansa and Sandor would not be punished for their sins for all times. They just had to find a completely new path now. Sansa could not see it, but maybe the gods would show it if they tried hard enough.

Or maybe there was no path and she was stupid for thinking there might be.

What if the Hound was right? Should she seek help elsewhere?

Sansa sighed.

Sandor had entered, now brooding and _fuming_ in a dark corner of the chamber, pretending to stand guard. _How many times did you stand enraged behind Joffrey's back, trying to ignore his stupidity and cruelty?_ She wished to know, but it was not a good moment to ask him.

At least he did not leave nor get drunk this time.

 _He came to me._ Her heart widened at that realisation. In his way, he did what he could do for her, once more. Even in his darkest moments, he would always come to Sansa, and when he did, he wanted to do good by her, though he was sometimes unable to deliver it.

 _“_ I’m a cripple,” Sandor announced after a while, less angry, perhaps. “It's my leg. It was wounded. I tend to forget it because I don’t feel it _every_ day.”

“The man who climbed to the Eyrie on the chain and descended from it through the waterfall is no cripple,” Sansa protested.

She could not love him when he was like this.

Love _him?_

“Sandor, do you truly not see? Do you not care about how I feel?”

She offered him her hands and stared him down. Looking at him helped a great deal. It was almost as if she wielded a sword of her own.

When he accepted her hands, he finally had the good sense to pull her closer to him and ask, timid and curious. ”What do you want me to see?”

“I…” Sansa stuttered, realising why she kept the blue dress that day… It… it smelled of him, only a little, but it did. “You… you are probably right... I want too much. A life in peace, a place in the world. We should probably _leave_ while we still can. I… I am no great and noble lady from the songs, who is always generous with her attentions and affections and ready to sacrifice herself for the good cause. I… I value my life. I am better in surviving as somebody’s hostage than in this…”

“This?”

Sansa was lost in Sandor's arms now. He carried her to her bed with a limp and her heart constricted wildly, wishing he would recover soon.

There was a better, stronger feeling than being loved, one which asked for _nothing_ in return.

If she only wanted to be loved…

She might accept love passively because she had no choice or the feelings of her lover were too strong. Or she might just mildly respond to it as a dutiful wife of some lord she barely knew.

If she only wanted to be loved…

She might be pleased to have her husband's affection yet think nothing of it herself. Her life would be calm and pleasant.

But to be loved was not the only thing Sansa wanted to experience.

The best feeling of all was to love a man. To fear for him. To care for him. To dream of his kiss… which… had never happened before he came back for her to the Eyrie, she realised, laughing inwardly at herself.

To invent his first kiss in her dreams out of love… To paint it faithfully to the difficult man she wanted it from, after observing him in the court and in the dark passes of the Red Keep... Sandor’s real kisses were _cruel_ like the one from her dreams… And soft and splendid… and so much better than when she only imagined one of them.

To love a man, to wish him well! To realise this would not easily change even if he did not correspond to her and was perhaps not even a good man. She did not begin dreaming of anyone else’s kisses when Sandor had left her with nothing but his bloody cloak and when he was far away… She just buried him deep inside, with all her other losses…

To be overjoyed from seeing him again.

"I love you too," she told Sandor, breathless, seeing very clearly to the bottom of her soul. "I have loved you for years."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, commenting, liking or bookmarking this story ))))
> 
> I estimate 20 to 25 chapters in total, so not so much left to write down.
> 
> Slow updates


	16. Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this, I feel like I should warn the readers about something, but I don't know exactly about what. Sandor in general?
> 
> As always, I have to thank TopShelfCrazy for time and effort invested into beta reading this :-)) Alyssa's Tears would be nowhere without your help.

“There is nothing wrong with my belly, but I give a rat’s arse for you and your brother. I have a brother too.” Sandor Clegane to Arya Stark, ASOIAF

**Sixteen**

Sansa gave him her immaculate hands and claimed she loved him.

Him, the killer, the loser, the victim; the burned boy and the crippled man.

She was in his armoured arms now; soft and young in a pretty dark blue gown. Sandor wished she wore yellow.

He wanted even more to undress; to feel her warmth with more than just hands. At least the silvery, light-grey vambraces of the buggering Winged Knight left his palms and fingers free of cold steel. They were better suited for this new reality than the soot black ones with sharp, cutting gloves he used to wear for years in King's Landing.

Sansa's breath did not hitch, her body did not tense, her pulse of a little bird never fluttered. She was not afraid of him, nor was she repulsed. She was not obliged to be there, nor to love him; not by him, nor by any of his or her masters. She was at ease with him, terribly so, more so with every new moment that he held her. Her smile broadened on the ladylike perfection of her features.

_For my face._

_For me._

It was more than he ever hoped for.

And yet not enough to quench and calm down the raging madness of his love for her, unrequited until so very recently. Besides, his admiring her smile would not help solve Sansa’s predicament of a political prisoner who risked being escorted to the block by Gregor.

Sandor’s heart parted ways with his angry, seething head. His blood-pumping muscle felt unusually big and plump, not tiny and lost in his ample chest, but large as the rest of him; thudding madly in response to the tenderness of Sansa’s surrender. He felt uncommonly young from it.

He almost felt strong again.

 _Weak, I am weak,_ he immediately cursed himself in his mind.

His head of a gnat churned with insults directed at his pitiable failure. He hated himself now, more than he had ever hated Gregor. Sansa had no use for a craven.

Whether she loved him or not.

He carried Sansa to her bed, the one she did not sleep in yet. He could not bring himself to take her to his bed, _their_ bed from the night before. He feared what he might do in his altered state if he let himself remember _fully_ how incredible it felt to have her. He did not want to chase her off by unmeasured demands.

Instead, he allowed himself to believe that Sansa loved him with his whole heart, knowing he should not. She must be acting as she did when she lied that she still loved Joffrey. This could not be true.

Could it?

He didn't know what would anger him more. To know he had _lost_ again while having her love or to reaffirm beyond any doubt that his life still had only one purpose; the only one it had ever had before.

_To kill Gregor._

And he failed in that too.

He wasted another opportunity to legitimately face his brother and kill him in approved combat, or possible self-defence. In that setting, no one could sanction Sandor. No one could condemn him to death, nor to take the black, as a payment for an act of justice.

“I am going,” he announced firmly to Sansa, laying her down with care, taking his shaky, hairy paws back to himself.

He needed wine. He did not drink himself to death when he fell in a tilt like an incapable arse. He came to her as the dog he was, with his tail between his legs. But she could not tell him she loved him and expect him to drool over her when he was rabid over his own miserable failures. Couldn't she understand that? What did she think he’d do? Write a song for her? Sing one?

“But you will be back?” Sansa demanded in that tremulous voice that had haunted his old memories of her; the girl who was beaten and needed help that never came as he stood by and watched. Her smile melted like summer snow in the frozen nowhere land she came from. She spoke like on those nights, years ago, when she encountered him in the Red Keep. Then, all she wanted was for him to leave her alone. Now and then she sounded on the verge of crying. He was certain that only the marble-like flawlessness of her lady's composure prevented her from dissolving in tears.

He had scared her again by simple, honest _words,_ by declaring what he had to do _._ He did not even mean to shock her. To know this made him even angrier. He yearned to be awful, more terrible than she would ever expect. And why not? She thought that of him. She told him so more than once.

“What do you think? You are still empty-headed, are you not?” he barked at her. “I’ve never been good at staying away from you, have I?" He paused, feeling empty after his outburst. "It matters not," he added wryly. "I am going. I have to. I just had to see you first.”

“What do you mean by all that?” she asked, becoming angry with him in return, red like the flames that threatened to eat him alive.

Why did she always had to ask questions? Unpleasant ones... Why did he, indeed, let anyone call him a dog? For all his love of dogs, no one called Sandor that for the love of him. Everyone spoke of him with contempt and thought _nothing_ of it, thought _nothing_ of him, but only Sansa dared ask why he allowed it…

Because it did not matter what they called him.

Nothing mattered.

Except killing Gregor.

Until a stupid noble girl told him he rode gallantly in a bloody tourney and he felt so insulted by her innocence that he opened his big, drunk mouth and told her _everything,_ what he never told anyone, since he told Father who would not listen.

 _His bedding caught fire,_ Father had said.

The maester sneered at him and Gregor smirked contentedly.

_Right…_

Sansa, on the contrary, had reached for his massive shoulder and condemned Gregor for not being a true knight, buying Sandor's soul with her judgement and her touch. After that, the dog would be on her side forever, loyal and fierce, without _any_ promise of love or favours in return.

But now… now… Where did he stand?

Where did she?

His mouth opened again in response to her latest query. Why did he have to see her tonight _before_ getting drunk?

“In the past, if I didn’t see you often enough in court, or if they beat you, or if I thought of you more than I would have wanted, or more than a man _should_ think about a young girI, I needed to drown in wine, like Joffrey threatened to do with that fool, Ser Dontos. Except that I choked willingly and still drank more,” he confessed, completely sober and yet more inebriated than he had ever been, torn by warring sensations; his anger over his losses, his love for Sansa, his hatred for Gregor and the newly discovered useless greatness of his heart. “If I could at least see you, I did better in keeping myself in check. So that I could see you again and again. There were times when I hated myself for wanting you and times when I did not care-”

“If I had known-” Sansa interrupted.

Sandor did not want to hear the rest. “What would you do? Kiss me? Being eleven and knowing shit about men? What good would that do?”

“I might have trusted you more,” Sansa finished her thought meekly. Her smile did not return.

_Trusted me? Back then? Are you mad?_

She was his once. _Do you regret it?_

He sat on the edge of her bed, mute and brooding, losing all his courage. _If I ever had it,_ he scorned himself bitterly.

“Kiss me now,” he said very quietly after a while, almost ashamed of asking.

She did, crawling wordlessly back into his arms, pressing her thinned, closed lips to his, never opening her mouth, hanging there with him, staying in place... He thought he felt her tears on his good cheek and instinctively closed his eyes, to not see them.

He did not deepen the kiss, but cupped her chin with his paws, compulsively stroking the smooth underside of it with his thumbs, not too harsh, but not too gentle either. Her skin was so fine and her bones so fragile. He could snap her neck in two if he was a different man. He felt her trembling slightly when their chaste kiss was done and she wriggled out of his arms, remaining seated next to him. There was an inch of space between them, which could very well be an abyss, a thousand feet deep. They were apart now, he was certain of it.

Sandor wondered how his inspection of Sansa's chin and throat felt for her and if her latest tremor was fear or a shiver of pleasure. Cowardly, he shied from asking, fearing the honest answer she might give him.

“You said you were going,” Sansa pronounced with that extreme calm and cold composure she could call to herself at will in dire need, hiding her true feelings from him. “Go.”

He obeyed remorselessly, stumbling out of her chambers that no longer felt like his, if they ever had been. He barely remembered to pick up the helm he had left on the floor and cover his face again. He did not understand. How could she kiss him at one moment and send him away on another? Did he truly say he was going? Did he explain why? Did he even know why? He could not remember clearly his own intentions after the defeat… Was she favouring his wishes? Or sending him away? He wanted to return to her immediately, but did not, trying to recall why he had to go in the first place. Why would he ever want to leave Sansa after she kissed him?

_How can you want a loser?_

_Wine._

_Please._

_Red and sour._

He could still feel his bad leg hurting, see himself falling to old Yohn Royce in the bloody tourney.

The Gates of the Moon were dark and gloomy, ringing with the deep roar of Gregor’s mad laughter, in celebration of his certain victory. Sandor followed the annoying noise, striving to remember what he had to do before Sansa shattered his world by confessing her love, raising the stakes in the gamble his life had always represented to an unprecedented height. He would build his existence back from scratch. He had done it before. He could do it again.

He could not afford another failure. Or...

It would be better if he killed Sansa before Gregor had a chance to approach her.

Around the corner, Sandor was passing through an open gallery in the upper floor of the castle when Gregor’s man, Qyburn, called him from the yard below. “A brave knight like you would do well to ask for the honour of joining the Kingsguard,” he proposed.

Sandor almost retorted he was no ser and remembered the ruse of posing as the Winged Knight just on time to shut up. “Bugger the Kingsguard,” he snarled. “Their helms are not winged,” he added stupidly, struck by a belated realisation that the noble hero of the Vale should watch his tongue.

To Sandor’s surprise, Gregor laughed heartily at his words, as if they were between _friends,_ and tried to pull his own white helm off.

Qyburn prevented him. “No, Ser Robert,” he admonished Gregor as a loving father. “Brave knights remain helmed. Liked the Winged Knight up there. Look. He is a well-behaved ser.”

Sandor chuckled stupidly at the treatment he was awarded instead of becoming enraged.

He could not believe his ears. Perhaps they were both burned without his knowledge and he did not hear well.

Outside the presence of the high lords, _Qyburn_ instructed Gregor as if Sandor's brother was a baby boy of three years at most. Their Father did not dare do so since Sandor’s _accident_. How did this Qyburn win an upper hand against Gregor and still have all his body parts intact?

On a whim, Sandor pulled his winged helm off, showing his face, exposing his scars to the merciless judgment of the moonlight, his brother and his pet.

Gregor omitted mocking Sandor as could be expected. He just lifted his arms to his helm again, wanting to mirror Sandor’s gesture of revealing himself.

Qyburn only had eyes for Gregor now. “Don't do that, Ser Robert,” he commanded Gregor sternly, preventing Sandor's brother from even opening his visor. He grasped Gregor's arms and took them off his oxen, armoured head as a kennelmaster might pull a dog by the collar in order to force the untamed hound to obey.

Faced with being utterly ignored, Sandor had to remind himself of his new reputation after Blackwater. No one feared him anymore. _I am a craven who has lost the belly for fighting. That is what they all think now. I should cut their throats open._

_But with what steel?_

Sandor was armoured, but unarmed. His splintered lance had remained on the tourney grounds and he had not had time to look for a sword because he stayed with Sansa as long as the circumstances allowed, unable and unwilling to leave her side.

His anger flared, simmered, died.

He chuckled mirthlessly at his own misery. Someone had to laugh since Gregor did not even honour Sandor with his usual despising smirk. The Hound re-covered his ugly mug, just on time, before Nestor Royce entered the courtyard of his castle.

The castle was on edge, awake with a thousand voices. Cersei's men and the men of the Vale must have been at the feast together. Sandor wondered if anyone slept that night. Killing could start at any moment.

Waiting for Nestor to speak his purpose, the Hound daydreamed of writing a poem on Gregor’s broad, naked back with sharp steel, and dedicating it to Sansa. She would hate it, wouldn't she?

_Never hold back, never hide._

_Take your anger out on me._

He wondered if Sansa was still waiting for him in her chambers after their awkward parting or if she was wandering the halls on her own as she used to, searching for some young and handsome saviour to whisk her away. The Gates of the Moon were not King's Landing, the walls were weaker and the castle was overcrowded with petty sers. The task of snatching her was not impossible.

Especially if the Hound was not at her door.

Some songs spoke of the inconstancy of women.

_How long will you think you love me? For an hour, for a day? Have you stopped already?_

“Our champion,” Nestor bowed obsequiously to Gregor. “Well met. I… We… The tourney master is with fever. The maester says he ate something unsound. I wished to inform you in person. The jousts will restart tomorrow after midday’s meal, not in the morning as plan-"

Gregor roared savagely. Rabid like the brother Sandor knew, he flung Qyburn to the side, shaking him off like vermin to get him out of the way. Then he seized Nestor's ugly doublet and began choking the lord rapidly.

Sandor stood by and observed Gregor’s doing with a small amount of amusement. And why not? Nestor had Sansa locked in a dungeon. The welts of the chains still marred her perfect wrists and Sandor's innards twisted at the thought of it; another failure on the long list he was guilty of.

The lesser Royce drooled. He would have begged for help if he could still speak.

Against his will, Sandor saw himself _jumping_ into the courtyard over the low balustrade of the upper gallery he had been standing on until then. He landed on his bad leg, _hurting_ like seven hells. Ignoring the pain, he dragged his leg forward and pulled Gregor back by his armoured, white shoulders, inexorably moved to do so by sturdy, entrenched, unforgettable hatred.

“Leave his lordship,” he demanded, becoming uncertain why he did not let Gregor have his way. Nestor’s messy death might be the public, evil deed that could be used against him, as Sansa suggested before the tourney. Maybe some of Cersei’s men would change sides, those with more sense than air in their toad-like heads.

Gregor turned on Sandor, strong like an ox. His hands found Sandor’s broad neck. But the Hound had thrashed against his brother's stone grip even when he was six and helpless, with his face shoved in coals. He did not give in to Gregor back then. He would not do it now. Never, ever. He’d rather die than follow Gregor's will in anything.

The Stranger had his own will.

The two brothers wrestled, fully armoured. None had advantage. None carried a sword. _Why are you unarmed, brother? Were you with a woman like I was or did your kennelmaster forbid you to carry weapons?_ Sandor struggled against Gregor and found profound joy in the effort. He listened to Gregor’s heavy breathing, or maybe it was his own, and fought for the ultimate pleasure of _killing_ his brother, unless the lesser one of losing himself to death found him first.

Gregor should never be underestimated.

And Sandor sometimes imagined it might feel good to die, but he would never give Gregor willingly that satisfaction.

The Stranger was the deathbringer.

Sandor shoved his brother off in a fierce, unmeasured push and prepared to launch himself on Gregor from a distance he thus created, hoping he might be able to smash his brother's head against the castle wall if he was fast enough.

_Isn't that more or less how Gregor killed the Dornish prince?_

He did not want to be like Gregor, but he could not stop now that he was so close to-

“Ser Robert,” the boy’s voice peeped on the margin of Sandor's blood-thirsting consciousness, uninvited and inopportune. “I wondered if you would read to me, the Lord of the Vale. A learned treatise about the history of Kingsguard.”

“Ser _Robert_ is of humble origin,” Qyburn put in, regaining his scarce wits after his passionate collision with the frozen mud of the castle yard. “He had never learned his letters. Maybe the Winged Knight would oblige.”

The false Winged Knight was at loss of what to do. Nestor had already scampered off. The fight was gone from Gregor after he was called _Ser Robert_ . The fake, giant member of the Kingsguard stood as _meekly_ as Sansa sometimes spoke, looking to Qyburn for directions. This was not the brother Sandor knew. _What did they do to you? Cut your head off and send it to Dorne?_

With great displeasure and a heavy heart, Sandor decided to get the boy away. His raspy voice might not make him an ideal wet nurse for reading, but it was nonetheless preferable that Sandor accompanied Robin Arryn. Just in case Gregor was ordered to kill him as a side business, so that the Lannisters could give the Arryn lands to one of their many blond cousins.

Why did killing Gregor always had to wait?

_Because there are no gods and no heavens and no hells._

_Only this mess we call life._

“Isn’t my cousin Sansa the prettiest maid of all?” Lord Arryn asked off hand when they were alone.

 _Not a maid anymore,_ Sandor thought spontaneously, longing to have Sansa again. His blood being up did not help. On the contrary.

“I can’t wait to become older and taller," Robin continued to paint his bright future in pompous words. "I feel of late that she might prefer me to cousin Harry when I come of age.”

_Right. In your dreams, boy._

_And what will you do if she says yes to the boy, dog?_

_She will be married one day and not to you._

“Tell the servants to bring us some wine,” Sandor asked of the little lord, once they were in his chambers, and began reading the learned scroll, picking by chance the part about some unhappy white-cloaked lover of a Targaryen queen or princess who was put to gruesome death when the affair was typically discovered.

_Serves him right._

There were no secrets at court.

Except that there was one involving Sandor when he wore the bloody white cloak of the Kingsguard.

About him and Sansa talking to each other at night, taking no advantage of each other. She never tried to win his loyalty to run away. And he never touched her as a man would a woman he wanted badly, not even in his most violent and cruel outburst against her person, after the battle.

It was possible that not even Varys or Littlefinger knew about the two unlikely companions.

The wine had been served in the meantime, but Sandor only noticed the flagon when he finished reading and remembering.

“I should not drink,” Robin concluded after the story, grinning stupidly. “The maester says it is bad for my health.”

“I say it's your health, not his,” Sandor treated the boy as another man, not caring. "Drink all you like." He was not the boy’s father to look after him properly.

The boy obeyed the dog's advice.

The wine was good. Red, dry, not fruity. It was not as strong as Dornish sour but it would do. After two cups, the boy hiccuped merrily. Sandor drank the rest directly from the flagon and missed the oblivion wine gave him. He was not drunk enough. Sansa remained in his head, the wonder of her body, the beauty of her words, the marvel of her kiss, the promise of her love.

_Do you love me still?_

He was too craven to crawl to her and ask her to repeat her confession.

 _Why not?_ She wanted to hear his, many times over.

"More wine," he demanded and read about valiant Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and his chaste sister, Naerys, who may have been his lady love for all her piousness.

_Why is every story I stumble upon tonight about bloody love?_

Two more flagons followed the first one. When they emptied them, Robin in little cups, and Sandor in great gulps, the haze in the Hound's head was almost as foggy as it should be, but not as thick that he would forget himself, forget everything. His losses were not completely numbed. And neither was the persistent largeness of his heart and its deranged beating.

“Bronze Yohn had another raven. They fly like mad this winter. His men will be here by tomorrow evening so the tourney should end as late as possible," the boy conveyed important information between hiccups and stared at Sandor with an unspoken, yet steel-hard demand in his brown, childish eyes.

Sandor realised this was why the little lord came after the Hound all alone, in the middle of the night, and he had been _right_ to do so. If Bronze Yohn came with the same proposal, Sandor would probably beat him to death. The fist fight with Gregor showed that his bad leg would not be a hindrance to do so on foot, when he could not be _unhorsed._

“You and Royce want me to wrestle my brother tomorrow before supper, rather than tonight,” the Hound retorted. "You could have said so immediately. I would have said yes to you. I owe you." Without Sweetrobin's help, Sansa might still be in the dungeon, or Sandor might have to kill twenty men to get to her and risk being wounded or worse. "And we all seem to share the same noble goal of wanting to rid the world of Ser Robert _Strong._ "

_Why do the highborns never speak plainly?_

_Because their peers might kill them if they do._ The Hound answered his own query.

“Challenge him,” Robin said dreamily. “To a combat. One knight can challenge another in the name of justice and honour. You don't need a place in a tourney for that.”

“In the name of _justice_ ,” Sandor laughed darkly. “There is no such thing.”

“Maybe,” Robin conceded, more drunk than a leech. “But I like to believe that there is and that it stands as high as honour _._ ”

"Get us more wine will you?" Sandor requested. What else was there to do when faced with such candid stupidity? What did the boy think, that his precious house words would save his skin from the likes of Gregor?

This time, the third time, the boy obliged without hesitation and the servants showed even less of it. None of the two maesters came looking for Robin.

It occurred to Sandor that maybe the Royces conspired to kill their little sick lord with this unknown sort of tasty Vale sour they grew and bottled over here. It would be a most natural and lordly death.

Sandor emptied the last two flagons himself, not letting the boy take another sip. Between healthy pulls of blessed blood-red liquid, he read to Sweetrobin about the Kingmaker, the Kingsguard whose actions had a bearing in the history of Westeros, turning it into a bloody war, the Dance of the Dragons.

When he reached the end, the Hound grinned stupidly over the empty flagons and a thickly-written scroll, finally reaching the state of oblivion he had sought.

Thankfully, the last tale he picked for reading was not about love.

xxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxx

The hour was very late and the castle silent when Sandor was on his way, returning to Sansa, drunk as a dog. In the complete absence of sobriety and composure, neither his losses nor his winnings counted. His life felt inconsequential. Men fell from horses all the time and it did not matter. He did not break a neck when he hit the dirt. Why was he ever upset about the tilt that went wrong or an old injury? Who cared about those? He halted on the gallery and searched the yard for Gregor and Qyburn. Just as he hoped, they were no longer there.

The Hound had been looking for a place to vomit in peace and he had just found it; over the stone balustrade. He would not be the only one who adorned the castle with the contents of his stomach after the feast. The equally pissed stable boys would curse their masters and muck their mess from the yard together with their own. He felt pleasantly lighter when he was done. He had no idea where to find hot water to wash properly so he wiped his face with light, watery snow that had kept falling during the night and stuck to the sculpted pillars of the parapet.

Then, presentable as he could be, he shed his armour piece by piece, scattering it mindlessly over the corridor leading to Sansa’s chambers, until there was no metal and boiled leather left on his body; only soft, sweaty tunic and breeches. Her room was moonlit when he opened the door and entered, quiet as a tomb.

The Stranger approached in silence.

He could not hear Sansa and he did not want to disturb her rest.

_Privy. Where is it?_

He was fortunate to find it before he opted for pissing through the window and letting the winter chill cool down the pleasing warmth of the room. The coals were dying on the hearth, blinking like eyes of some wild animal.

Sansa slept fully dressed, without a blanket. She donned a brown dress, similar to the one she had when he had found her on the mountain, only more simple, made for a servant and not for a noble bastard. Yet her gown was impeccably clean, like no servant's garment would ever be. In place of a pillow, there was a neatly ordered bundle for travelling, stuck under her perfectly combed head. The pack looked village-like or rather, as though Sansa made it like she imagined a peasant woman doing it.

In the songs, great ladies visited noble peasants and their families, men that never stank nor wanted to rob them or rape them. On such occasions, the ladies dressed humbly and delicately, not wishing to offend the poor. Sandor was fairly certain that Sansa Stark knew all the songs in existence and that she never stank in her life. He… he caught himself wishing that she never learned what the real peasants could be like and remained exactly as she was, convinced that there was goodness in the world.

“What is the meaning of this?” he whispered, realising his breath smelled like horseshit dipped in the sour wine from the Vale as soon as he opened his mouth. He should have _eaten_ some of that snow from the parapet. He remained standing two steps away from her bed.

Sansa's eyes snapped open. Her forehead frowned. Even her little nose wrinkled at the ugly sight of him.

“I was going as well,” she said. “I nearly left.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was afraid,” Sansa confessed. “Where would I go? I fretted over my future until I fell asleep.”

"What was your reason for going?" he inquired timidly, slurring on words, embarrassed with his inability to form them correctly.

“I was angry and sad," she replied honestly. "Your unkindness had scathed me before. But never as much nor as deeply as today. It felt like my heart was bleeding.”

“I know,” he said, understanding, grinning madly. It was the best truth he could have heard that day.

“Do you?” she stared _up_ towards him, searching his face for some answer she required. Yet her scrutiny felt as if she stared him down from the position of power.

“Oh yes,” he reassured her. “Because it pained me when you continuously averted your eyes from me on the kingsroad. It never bothered me when anyone else did it. But it hurt like seven hells when it was you. And later, when you wanted to thank me for saving you, not meaning the courtesies you bestowed on me. It cut me every time. When I was… when I was… after I fell in love with you.”

It served nothing to beat around the bush. He could just as well tell her.

There was no greater misery than to be treated with indifference and kind coldness by the noble girl who had unwittingly stolen his heart.

“I never meant to give insult and you had all intention to be hateful,” she rebelled, angry, angry, angry…

He liked it better than her porcelain sadness.

“You are right about that, but your special attention towards my person did not hurt any less for that subtle distinction,” Sandor muttered. “Robin wants to marry you,” he added, spying on her jealously for reaction.

“I don’t,” Sansa objected. “I don’t want to marry.”

“No?” he wondered.

“No,” she confirmed sadly.

_Not even this… this dragon prince Varys is offering?_

_Not even me?_

_Why not me?_

_If you love me..._

_Is that not the reason for the ladies to marry in your songs?_

“Kiss me,” he demanded. “Do it differently. Do it rudely. Pass me your anger in a kiss.”

He had never voiced his desires in detail to a woman. He only made them plain by other means.

“Why?” she asked, puzzled. “Isn’t that… unpleasant and awful for both of us, besides being terribly unladylike?”

“Go ahead,” he encouraged her. “You know you want to. You know I can take it. Do your best.”

Sansa hesitated.

“For the love that is between us,” he dared claim, challenging her to deny her wonderfully simple confession from before. She used the same words as he did on the mountain… saying she had loved him for years… He did not know if she did it on purpose or by chance.

In his drunkenness, he realised that he had unjustly expected a more exuberant statement of love from Sansa once it came, if it ever came his way, something convoluted and worthy of a great lady like herself. Something like her poem. Yet he knew painfully well that every morsel of touch and devotion he had gotten from Sansa for real was so much better than anything he imagined in his solitude.

He knelt before her bed and did not quite expect her to take him on his challenge, but she did.

Sansa captured the top of his head firmly with her hands and changed their position a few times until she had a good grip on him. Then she pulled his eyebrows apart with her thumbs and studied his eyes and lips intently, like a little bird of prey. The skin on his forehead stretched, tensed and... hurt...

Sandor waited, with rising anticipation of how she would proceed.

Satisfied with something only she saw in Sandor, Sansa assaulted his lips, capturing first the upper and than the lower one tightly and harshly between her own, adding her teeth in the end so that he could feel their sharpness. Her tongue followed suit, plunging very deep into his maw, almost to the point of discomfort, exploring him without consideration if he had any room to breathe. She ended her angry kiss by biting the burned corner of his mouth suddenly and roughly, as if she wanted to bite the scars off his face. He felt the sting of her sharp little teeth _through_ the ruined skin, which was normally impossible. He didn't have much feeling left over there so she must have gone deep.

“More,” he pleaded, painfully hard from the onslaught he asked for and from the first sketchy contact with the moisture and warmth of her mouth, announcing the wetness there must be between her legs for him, despite all her anger.

 _And blood,_ he reminded himself. _Moonblood._ His head swam from drink and disappointment. His swelling lessened a bit from the realisation of the inconvenience, but his joy from being with Sansa remained untouched.

 _Soon,_ he thought, he hoped.

Her second kiss was far less angry, but equally deep and… _demanding_? He dared return it, ready to withdraw if he was wrong, and heard her sigh gently when they met halfway. She did not sound in pain so he took it as an encouragement to continue. They consumed each other shamelessly, as hard as they could without drawing blood.

“This is it,” he whispered, immensely pleased. “More.”

He _knew_ she had it in her; to match his passion with her own, especially if provoked. His lips tingled and burned. It was the best succession of kisses they shared so far, the most courageous one for both; deadly and unforgiving as the sets of steps and blows Sandor had learned in his childhood with the aim to kill. Sansa’s kiss murdered all other yearnings in his soul. Maybe neither of them was craven and they were both brave.

Unlikely as this sometimes seemed.

Her eyes were huge now, blue and perhaps worried if she did this right and… pleased… Her anger with him seemed exhausted. He… he did not remember ever being angry with anyone. He did not remember Gregor nor that he had any scars. He never thought he could spend so much time just kissing a woman. He never thought a woman would kiss him for longer than a fleeting moment before she would want his cock. He realised that he… somehow he ended up looming over Sansa in her bed, with his weight on his elbows. She was laying on her back and unlike before, she did not seem to notice or mind their position.

“Here, please,” she pointed shyly at her rounded breasts. The bodice of the servant's dress was not as firm as the better ones she normally donned so it had moved during their frantic entanglement, revealing her treasures to the dog’s hungry gaze.

"Not as harsh as on my lips," she clarified.

“Better not at all,” he thought aloud. Nipples were too close to her forbidden sweetness, too dangerous. He felt tempted to lick her moonblood off her and see if she would let him take her. He did no such thing.

“I did as you asked,” she complained. "I did my best."

She had him there.

He caressed a nipple with his index finger and lowered his mouth to the other one, licking it, exchanged the position of his mouth and finger, stayed like that, changed a few more times, felt Sansa writhing in place... He lifted his head to see her and cupped her breasts roughly, kneaded them, stared at her face lovingly. He felt her squeezing her legs together, helplessly, tensely, under her skirts. He wondered how this sort of provocation felt for a woman, knowing he had a banner pole in his breeches. He plunged down again and sucked on her breasts as a newborn babe.

Sansa hit him on his shoulders with her fists when she needed him to stop and he conformed himself.

She breathed and breathed and breathed and could not speak.

“We can’t stay, can we? I was wrong, wasn’t I, when I thought we could?” she asked bravely from below when she gathered herself together, seemingly in peace with her new decision to accept _his_ initial advice about running away from the Vale. “Are we leaving tonight?”

“No,” Sandor stated bluntly the truth as he saw it now. He regretted it was always his lot to contrary Sansa’s expectations from life and make her see that the peasants were usually poxy and not noble. “You were right and I was wrong. We have no safe place to go to. We are not going anywhere.”

Chance was Gregor would find them before they left the Vale. And if he didn’t, the mountain clans would be overjoyed to correct his shortcoming, kill Sandor and have their way with Sansa.

Sandor carefully lowered himself on his side, laying behind Sansa. She still made no reaction to show that she either noticed or minded he had been on top. Her hair was entangled. She would not like it that way. So he combed Sansa’s hair with his fingers, too dark and not red enough for his liking, and yet so silky, too good for the likes of him. He separated the long waves of her hair; loving it, loving her. He murmured to her ear how he wished to taste her, drink her honey, before having her next time, whenever the moon allowed it, not knowing if she understood all his meaning, not caring if she did or not. Words were wind.

Weren’t they?

He heard himself whisper to her how much he loved her, and how he would never, ever leave her; many times so, shushing her to sleep.

He did not even think to wring another confession of love out of her.

Because if he could not only anger her, but also cut her deeply with his hatefulness, then he _knew_ that the incredible _must_ be true.

Sansa loved him...

Or she would give two shits for anything he said or did.

The Stranger slept in peace that night, sounder than the Hound did. The killing would wait for another day.

His mind cleared very slowly. He floated between sleep and waking state, suffering through the familiar pains of the hangover. At some point, he finally remembered what he wanted to do that evening, before Sansa's stunning revelation, besides getting drunk.

With first light, he would find the smith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next POV is also him. Then we go back to her.
> 
> Thanks to anyone who bothered to comment ))) I am very happy to hear your thoughts about all this )))
> 
> The reason why I'm unable to comment my own text further is that this story is more personal in the sense that it is even more detailed with describing the imagined, fictional feelings of the characters than my other stories so I find it very difficult to elaborate the matters further than what I already put on publicly visible screen ))
> 
> I trust that the text speaks for itself.
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Any feedback is welcome.
> 
> Sorry about slow updates.


	17. Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you TopShelfCrazy for proof reading this.

           

“I was not at Sherrer, nor at Mummer's Ford. Lay your dead children at some other door.” Sandor Clegane the Hound, Asoiaf.

**Seventeen**

Light sneaked lazily into the darkness of the chamber; the faintest touch of white caressing the floor.

The Hound did not know if he had slept or not. His muscles were clenched, tense; his spine stiff, tight. His eyes burned, irritated from the hangover. His scars weighed on him more than ever; uncomfortable and itching, more faithful than the Stranger in keeping him company.

The large puckered crater above the visible jaw bone dripped yellow, repulsive liquid, uglier than blood. This occurred at times, he never knew why, when he was skittish, like now, or when he drank in earnest. He hadn't drunk that much though… nor that little. His leg hurt and he was not young, but neither was Gregor; older than him by many years.

He was what he was, no more, no less; the only man in Westeros _almost_ as tall, _almost_ as strong as his big _brother_. The Hound needed a good sword. With steel in hand, he could win. He was skilled enough. Fortune would count for less than in bloody jousting, though his leg would still put him at a disadvantage…

Gregor was not crippled.

The Hound rose in bed, dark of heart. He stood up, naked to the waist, and punched the nearest wall with his sword arm to feel better. His knuckles hurt pleasantly from the violent action. He would bang his head against the masonry to lose the tension if he didn’t need it intact. He wished he could have another head placed on his shoulders, a prettier one, and hated himself for the uselessness and cowardice of his wish.

He hit the wall again, with his shield arm now, growling deeply like a wounded animal. He would be bruised, cut, maybe break a bone, in the coming fight. Best if he was bloodied and accustomed to pain.

Small pain was nothing to him, who had known a much greater one.

He was thirsty like seven hells, for _water_ and not for wine. He wanted to rip the scars off his face and then maybe he would feel better. Not even the undeniable presence of an incredible, sweet-smelling lady in his bed brought any measure of relief.

_So it is today._

He would challenge Gregor and kill him.

If he could.

There was always that other possibility if he was honest with himself.

A very nervous calm came over him at the thought of his own death; a distracted and shy sensation of peace. Timidness was new. The last time he felt it he must have been a boy of five. He let it wash over him. It was better than fruitless anger.

_It is today._

_Today it will be over._

At least one of the two brothers would die.

And Sandor was more determined than ever that the first one to fall would be Gregor.

Sansa stirred in bed. Her empty hand wandered over the blanket, her body _stiffened,_ became alert.

 _Why? Do I frighten you still?_ His guts tightened from gnawing worry that they went back to the beginning.

“Sandor,” she murmured tenderly, searching the crumpled, sweaty sheets, not finding.

_Or do you miss me?_

Could she possibly long for the feel of him, the stink of him…?

Unbelievable as this seemed, the Hound gave himself over to the latter assumption. He sat gingerly back on bed, allowing Sansa's hand to roam to his clothed, scarred thigh. Her fingers lingered there, trapping him. Her little nails scratched the fabric with tentative knowledge; a recent one.

He expected Sansa to rouse, to chirp, to say something, but soon realised she had merely spoken in her sleep.

The Hound should not plague her dreams. They should be pleasant and collected, like herself. Yet the notion that he might be in her pretty head, like she was in his, elated him; nourished him.

Sansa rolled languidly towards him, coming closer, until her face skirted his bad thigh. Her body curled slowly around his back. Her legs folded to hug him more completely; slim, bare feet reaching the kneecaps of his good leg.

“So warm,” she murmured, absent-minded, drowsy, drifting back into peaceful silence.

_She is sleeping, dog. Let her be. Go. Do what you must. She won’t notice._

Then again, she might.

He needed to part ways with her for the day. Surely she could see it. He should leave her, go to the armoury, then to the yard to train with anyone willing to cross swords with the buggering _Winged Knight..._ Grab some food in the kitchens to eat on foot, not too much, nor too little…   Fetch Stranger and lurk on the margins of the last tilts of the tourney until the moment came to challenge Gregor… And go back to Sansa when the day was done.

If he could.

If he departed now, he would be ready for Gregor, less tense, less… in love. He would have more chance to defeat him.

It would be so much easier to leave Sansa, but this morning he could not. She had been terribly upset by it the previous day, prone to rash decisions. Endearing as that was… he had to _smile_ when he remembered her wish to _go_ on her own _…_ he didn't want her to fret again, nor to keep her in the dark about his intentions.

Yet he could not bring himself to wake her. So he gazed at her, not touching, imagining kissing her, knowing she would welcome it, well, on most places; she had _not_ appreciated it between her legs.

After a few more quiet moments, Sansa woke of her own accord, let go of Sandor and stretched to lie on her side in their bed, studying him, eyes raking over his bloodied hands and bare chest. In the end she met his gaze, as always these days.

“You are still here,” she told him melodiously. It was not a complaint. A small surprise, maybe, if he could read her as well as he gave himself credit for.

“You wish I weren’t?” he inquired recklessly, teasing her. His lips twitched into a burned smile. “Maybe you do.”

“I always wish for things I can’t have,” Sansa reacted gloomily, rubbing her eyes. “That at least has never changed. I was counting on waking up alone,” she added. Her lips stretched in a pretty smile for him and he yearned to kiss her.

“Well guess what, you didn’t,” he said. Tension began leaving him from simple conversation. He could talk to her forever. Correct her, be corrected by her. Grin. Be ugly from it. Not care.

Or maybe he could not.

The unmade dress Sansa had slept in revealed the most beautiful teats in existence when she changed position. He was… she invited him to kiss them mere hours ago. If he allowed himself to truly look her over, he-...

He had to move.

 _Now_.

“Come with me to see the smith,” he said rapidly. Women did not belong in smithies and armouries. He supposed he could take her there nonetheless. Ladies did not belong in dungeons either, nor should they be beaten or taken to see heads on spikes.

“Oh,” Sansa exhaled, pleased by his invitation. “I thought you stayed to receive my favour for today.”

“Why only a favour if I can have you?” he rebelled.

“Now, yes,” Sansa bursted, sitting up as if he stung her, rearranging her dress. “But what of tomorrow?”

“There may be no tomorrow. Not for me.” There, he said it. The reason he had stayed. To say farewell in person. Not to her sleeping form.

Sansa’s face paled, her lips trembled. She could not speak. She was daft at times. Not stupid. Never stupid. She got him alright.

“Try not to worry,” he said dryly. “I _am_ taking _him_ down for you before I go.”

A high-pitched sob escaped Sansa, a single one.

She stifled it and became very still.

What more could she want from him than to die for her? It was what the dogs did best.

Sandor grunted on, not allowing himself to be distracted. “Marry that prince if he comes here for you on his dragon. Most pretty boys are a tad better than Joff.”

“You know about Lord Varys’ offer?” she exclaimed, insulted.

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose you agreed.”

Sansa began to sob. “You know nothing about me,” she said helplessly. “And you never bothered to find out. You just assume who I am, what I want, like everyone else.”

That was unjust.

“Do I?” he challenged her. "Is that why I'm here?"

He had always been trying to peek behind the wall of her perfection, before _and_ now, wondering if that was all there was. He admired and adored the magnificently polished façade, but more so the stubborn, passionate mess of a girl with stiff spine he discovered behind it.

And he was utterly amazed and defeated by how Sansa showed him her love.

As if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Stop it,” she admonished him through her tears, never cowed by his manners or the extreme lack of them. “I would not … I would not _waste_ this morning on your mockery.”

He wouldn’t either.

So he found his tunic and pulled it over his head in silence, watching Sansa readjust her dress to meet the demands of propriety. She had fallen asleep in it, pondering _leaving_ on her own, without him. And maybe she would survive that too, like she did everything else.

She would live longer than him… Now or many years later if he could stay at her side.

Sansa wrapped a long travelling cloak over her straight shoulders, ready to go. Sandor still had to look for pieces of his armour where he’d left them, returning drunk to her quarters.

_Later._

At least the helm was in front of the privy, the last thing he took off. He hid his mug in case they encountered an early bird of a servant on their way. He caught a poignant look on Sansa’s face when he did that.

_Later._

He could not think now of what Sansa thought of him and his actions.

_Later._

The armoury was empty when they entered it. Few swords were left in the racks, none of quality, nor heavy enough. The armourer, who was also the smith, was nowhere in evidence. The Gates of the Moon had one office for both, just like it had only one spacious, drafty hall near the stables that served as both the smithy and the armoury. The tourney had emptied the stocks. The brave _knights_ must have purchased or simply taken the weapons of any value. The mel é e was scheduled for the day after the tourney, but Sandor bet that it would not take place. _Not after the bloodshed of today._

_So much for finding the smith._

Sansa saw the deception written on his face and filled his vision by herself. She seemed older, not only because of her curves, but because of her grim expression. Her tears had almost dried.

“You are late,” she said quietly. “You should have come here on the first day, when they put me in a dungeon.”

“Yes,” he admitted.

He could only have a decent blade now if he forged it himself. And he was about as gifted for that as he was for singing.

The Stranger was not the Smith.

The Hound hit the wall hard. His knuckles bled again.

“Others take me!” Sansa cursed softly and stayed his hand from further self-hurt. “Are you mad?”

"Might be I am," he spat out and went to the rack, drawing the first remaining sword. It was as good as any, light like a knife. Maybe it would serve for the Knight of Flowers. Next he found a sword belt and a scabbard. It all looked ridiculous, but at least he was armed. He still had to find that armour.

Of the buggering Winged Knight.

_Later._

Sansa suddenly came an inch away from him and waited. Trembling and nervous, she sought his proximity. He didn't put the belt on yet so he dropped it. Rashly, he tossed his helm to the ground.

His arms encircled her waist, giving in to her unspoken demand for closeness. Her scent drifted to his nostrils, enchanting him.

“I want to kiss you and I don’t want to,” she whispered, looking down.

“How is that?” he had to know.

“If I do, how can I let you go fight your brother?” she answered, looking up, _crying_ softly. “And how can I _not_ kiss you?”

“Same here,” he rasped. It was so good when they could simply agree.

“I wish… I wish I didn’t love you,” she breathed out.

“Why is that?” he asked timidly, not really wanting to know the reasons. At the same time he basked in knowledge that she loved him, even after he’d left her for the better part of the night to drown his anger and stumbled into her bed drunk.

“I would not pray for you to be victorious. You would… you would not die.”

“Anyone can die,” the Hound reacted violently. “Why not Gregor? The chances are the same.”

“Because in life the monsters always win,” Sansa said hysterically, mopping her nose in his tunic. “Not the heroes, like in the songs.”

“I lived this long,” he protested. "I should be evil enough. And the last time I looked in a mirror I saw a monster."

Sansa laughed through her tears and backed to the smithy wall, dragging him with her because he allowed it.

“Gods,” she said when his body bumped into hers with all his weight. Standing, he didn’t have the reflex to put it elsewhere as when bedding a woman.

Sansa grasped his face, carefully avoiding contact with the dripping scar above his jaw. Years ago, he would have thought she skipped it because she was clearly disgusted. Now he surmised she might have done it so as to not cause him pain. She had been reluctant to kiss him hard even when he demanded it. Her legs took a short flight, circling his waist. His hands followed suit, ending up under her buttocks for support. Her hair hung loose, silky, glossy, curled.

_So dark._

The heat between them was absolute when she began kissing him tenderly. There was no anger she wanted to pass on to him this morning.

Only love.

“I know that you will do your best,” she said with conviction.

“Why?”

“It’s what you do. You don’t hesitate. Not even to kill the butcher’s boy,” she sounded defeated from the memory.

And he did, but many times the best he was capable of was far too little.

"I… I do what I can, when I can,” she offered.

"Isn't that good?" he asked. “Most people do nothing. Not even what they should.” Sansa did more for him with her half-actions of understanding in the past than Lord Tywin with all his gold and authority.

“Will you cry for me?” he rasped all of a sudden, surprising himself by his outburst.

_If I die._

No one mourned the Stranger.

“Will I?” Sansa exclaimed. “You dare ask! I have lost everyone I ever held dear. I… I counted you among my losses! And then I dared hope… If the gods take you from me, do you think that I’ll ever stop crying?”

She buried her face in his shoulder. “And since you so obviously read Lord Varys’ letter, I would have you know that I said neither yes or no to the offer to marry Prince Aegon. I thanked them for their kindness to consider the match and said I was captive and thus in no position to give any answer-”

“You demanded they come and get you, if they want to-”

“-I implied they had that choice, though I didn't dare mention it, yes,” Sansa hammered. “And I wished in my heart as I wrote that I would never be _obliged_ to accept this offer. Nor anyone else’s,” she pointed out bluntly.

 _What of me?_ The Hound thought and kept silent.

“The letter from the capital was not the only thing I read,” he ventured.

Sansa blushed prettily. “Oh. You… you… you are incorrigible!” Her fists hit his chest; butterflies wishing to fight off a bear.

“Wasn't it about me?” he fought not to show amusement with her anger.

“That doesn't mean I gave you permission to read it!” Sansa was seething.

Sandor realised he had doubted many things she said, but never her poem. It was so much like her. It rang so true. _Did you not mean it?_

“How empty-headed you must have found it,” she complained bitterly. “To be invoked in verses when all you ever wanted from a _stupid_ girl was what men desire and never a simple song-”

“I loved it,” he stopped her.

“You did?” she sounded completely incredulous.

“I loved it,” he repeated sternly. “It was pretty. And it prevented me from wishing to cut Aegon's cock off and feed it to the goats. Made me wish to show you what love is. If I could figure out how.”

Sansa's face, wrinkled in disgust at first, suddenly _glowed_ from within.

Before she could say another word, a rooster crowed. Stridently. Rudely.

Unafraid, the harbinger of the morning.

Sandor parted slightly from Sansa, realising she was holding on to his bleeding hands, silent like the walls around them, and yet warm like the life he might be leaving behind.

He drew her closer again, pinched her chin, tilted it upward, not ungently.

“Look at me,” he said, used the moment to look at _her_ with love. “It will be alright.”

With that he turned brusquely away, picked up the sword belt, cinched it, covered his face, and fell behind Sansa, shadowing her, letting her lead the way back to the castle.

Her chamber bustled with serving girls when they returned, accompanied by the Lady Myranda Royce.

"The tourney will restart immediately after we break our fast," the plump, normally cheerful woman informed nervously. She was far less timid about showing her huge turnips on display in a tight purple dress.

_So Gregor won't wait._

_Good._

_The sooner the better._

"If I may have a moment to armour myself," Sandor rasped like a good dog. "I shall return on time to accompany you to the lord's solar, my lady."

"By all means, good ser," Sansa retorted pleasantly, not revealing any trace of perturbation on the porcelain perfection of her features.

The Hound couldn't help himself. His anger returned. She called him _ser_ . And he _hated_ her for her sudden composure, though he knew that his face had also become deceivingly expressionless, almost bored, by the force of a superior habit, built up in court over the years.

"I shall use the time of your absence as an opportunity to change," she added and the Hound almost snarled at her. _I might die and you are thinking about gowns._

Why did he ever think Sansa different than any other lady?

Because she let him bed her? Well, she wasn't the only one.

He avoided thinking he was the _first_ man she allowed between her sheets and wallowed in his hatred of her until he remembered…

_Gregor._

The Hound stormed out of the room and let his anger abate, directing his rage into collecting the scattered pieces of his mail and leather and donning it.

Content to be armoured and armed, as calm as he could make himself, he was back at Sansa's door when it opened.

Sansa exited, with her cloak closed tightly under her chin, and her hood up, on Lady Royce’s arm. He could not see the dress she chose nor how she did her hair. He found he wanted to, cursed himself for needing to. Spying on the attire of the traitor's daughter had become his favourite, sick amusement in court, for all that her fineries were often spiced with the long streaks of her tears...

Now she stole a glance at him and smiled shyly. He hated himself for holding against her that she wished to show her beauty. He would help her choose dresses if she asked it of him with that smile. Maybe he would discover a talent for sewing.

The Hound stomped after the ladies, conflicted as ever, looking forward to what the day would bring.

In the solar, Little Lord Arryn, two Royces, their maesters, peacock Harry, the lady his aunt, Qyburn and _Gregor_ were already at the table, drinking _milk_ from large bowls _._ The Hound yearned for water of which there was none to be found, unless he turned to drinking melting snow.

"Cousin Sansa, good morning," little lord said placidly. "We shall know sooner than we intended if the gods favour Ser Robert and if the brave knight should be granted my leave to escort you to the capital.”

In response, Gregor slammed his empty bowl on the table.

The Hound wondered if he added poppy to it or not. If he did, that could work to Sandor’s advantage. It could slow him down.

Wine or strongwine was never enough for Gregor, who claimed to suffer from headaches, or just needed something stronger to get drunk than normal men.

"The gods will be the judges if _Ser Robert_ is a true knight," Sansa replied courteously, lowering the hood of her cloak and unclasping it, letting the garment slide over the back of her chair.

She wore a gown of _yellow_ silk with _three_ thick black ribbons stitched to her bodice, partially loose, waving with every movement of her body. If you squinted, it was not that hard to imagine the dogs. Her hair was up, in Southron style, prettier than Cersei ever made it, just too bloody dark.

The neck of the dress was chaste. On the contrary, the length was too short, not reaching her ankles. As a result, her high boots were fully visible under the table. It must have been one of Lady Royce's gowns, adapted in haste to fit a new wearer…

Sandor's heart nearly stopped at the sight.

She did it for him.

Like a… like a lady wife.

Strangely, the Hound was not the only dog affected by Sansa’s appearance.

Gregor growled savagely. He grabbed Qyburn's head and plunged it into a bowl full of milk. His pet twitched, resisting drowning. This annoyed Gregor, who squashed Qyburn’s head until the victim dropped immobile under the table.

The old aunt of Ser Peacock fainted. Lady Royce retched.

Gregor strode towards Sansa. Sandor and both Royces barred the way. The maesters ran to Qyburn to check if he died.

The boy attacked Gregor with chivalrous nonsense.

"Ser Robert," Robin scorned Gregor in a fake fatherly tone, sounding almost like Littlefinger. "A true knight has to prove his valour in tourneys and battles, not kidnap a lady by force."

Sandor wished fervently that the knightly crap would help again. He did not want to fight his brother this close to Sansa.

Gregor… cried _shrilly,_ and ran out of the solar, which had windows on both sides of the castle. Sandor could watch him storming through the yard and out of the gates to where his army was camped.

This time, Gregor seemed to have heard the word battle, and not the word tourney. Or perhaps he was himself now – loving killing better than jousting.

Yohn Royce shouted "Close the gates!" - the first man to act with the new odds in mind. Some serving gnats relayed his order.

Gregor forced his army to form ranks with fierce, inarticulate cries. At least the enemy was outside now, and not feasting in the castle as the night before. The defenders were outnumbered until reinforcements arrived, but the walls would work in their favour.

Sansa looked pale by Sandor's side.

"Why did he do that?" she asked.

"He must have thought you were one of his two late wives," Sandor explained. "Or maybe the third one he was planning to marry when Tywin sent him to burn the riverlands. Or the fourth one, I wouldn't know. I never much followed Gregor's life. He is… I don't know what Cersei did to him this time. He looks mad. More mad than usual, that is. He is both himself and some knight he had never been. I don't know what to make of him half of the time."

"How do _you_ know all that?" Yohn Royce asked rabidly.

The Hound pulled off the helm of the buggering Winged Knight and slammed it on the table. Milk spilled all over, trickled down the sides. At least he didn’t drown anyone in their bowls. "What do you think, Royce?" he snarled. "Don't tell me you didn’t fathom the truth."

“He needs to be trialled,” Nestor declared solemnly, “for Saltpans.”

“Why didn’t you put me on a trial yesterday, when I stopped Gregor from choking you?” the Hound wondered. “I haven’t been to Saltpans. I am not responsible of all killing in this land.”

“Why should we trust you?” Bronze Yohn wondered, looking as if he wanted to believe Sandor, at least until the battle ended. The Gates of the Moon could use the Hound in their ranks.

“I have a wound,” the Hound said darkly, seizing the opportunity to be heard. “And you have two maesters. They will be able to tell you how old it is and how bad it was. If they are honest in their trade, they will confirm that I wasn’t able to stand, and much less ride or wield a sword at the time of the sack.”

Yohn Royce nodded, but Nestor continued nagging haughtily. "But, Lady Stark, why did you choose yellow? Isn’t grey _your_ house colour?"

The Hound thought how he should kill him right after he did for Gregor.

"Why not? Is wearing yellow a crime?" Sansa appeared mildly surprised by the lord’s remark. Her eyes fluttered to Sandor and she gave him the slightest, most gracious nod in existence.

 _I love you too,_ the Hound thought irresistibly.

"A lady can favour her champion by her appearance," Sansa lectured the lords present in a softest voice she could muster. "In case you forgot, he saved your lord, my cousin, and myself from certain death in the Eyrie."

She approached the Hound and stood before him with her shoulders very straight.

He wondered what insipid thing she would say or if she'd shed tears again. He both wanted and dreaded it.

She took a black ribbon she had hidden in her too-dark hair, leaving the three on her bodice intact. His lady wife.

"A lady has never had a truer champion of her cause," she told him in all honesty. Her hand was clammy but steady when she pressed the fabric into his palm.

_Brave. You are being brave._

"May you continue to defend it for many years," Sansa finished.

"I do not mean to stop, my lady," he tried to respond nobly, for her sake. "But the Stranger may differ from me."

Everyone was stunned to silence except the boy.

"We should climb _back_ to the Eyrie," the little falcon said with nervous, childish passion. “With all mules we have and men to clear the tunnel. The winch is broken. Lord Nestor should go with me this time instead of sending me to die. He has _broad_ shoulders. He can dig. The Eyrie is impregnable."

The lesser Royce did not even bother to deny his attempted crime. The Hound wondered whether to mention that his lordship should stand a trial.

_What for?_

Bronze Yohn would probably never punish his cousin and Lord Arryn was too weak to sentence a man to death.

"The idea has merit,” Bronze Yohn thought aloud. “If we begin losing the Gates of the Moon, the survivors could hide in the woods, climb the Giant's Lance in small groups and join you. The enemy doesn’t know the way. They won’t find it easy to follow without a guide and we won’t leave any here. They will lose men and horses.”

"We have to take food," Sansa put in, forward thinking. "There are quite some weapons and armour up there, but nothing to eat."

Nestor Royce made himself scarce and began to bark orders to his household.

"Sansa," the little lord begged of his pretty cousin. "Will you help me get ready please? And to ride up without shame? I will try not to shake, I promise." As he said that, spasms conquered his body, inevitable as sunrise.

"Come," Sansa said and ushered him towards the door. “I shall pray for your victory,” she said to the remaining men at the exit, pale like snow, and dragged her shaking cousin out.

Her last look was for Sandor, before she disappeared.

“Shall we?" Bronze Yohn addressed impatiently the two maesters, the Hound and Ser Peacock. "There is an army under our walls."

A quick look through the window revealed that Gregor's men had formed those ranks. Gregor rode in front, waving his greatsword like a madman.

The Hound was accepted among the men of the Vale for the time being, as long as fighting lasted.

Later, they would call him dog again.

The men hurried down the stairs, to intone the song of steel.

The Hound thought of his many years of wanting revenge and then of his last years, last days, last moments with Sansa.

He was a fool. He could have challenged Gregor much sooner, when King Robert was still alive, if he hadn't lost faith in the world. He could have told the truth about his burns, about the _accidents_ in his family… Robert was not a diligent defender of the poor and the infirm, but neither was he cruel by nature, and he had never let Cersei do everything she wanted. He could be swayed to a good cause, once in a while. Especially if it didn't have to include admitting his own fault for accepting the corpses of Rhaegar's children from Tywin, with gratitude.

Sandor was by no means an innocent. He knew very well that he could have applied himself _less_ in the service of the Lannisters, instead of just telling himself that the world was awful and nothing mattered, except killing Gregor, someday.

He should have let the Stranger do his work himself.

Sandor was always meticulous about his killing. Maybe he should have been… sloppy when circumstances allowed. Let the victims keep their worthless lives. He should have done more, when he could...

But Gregor, Gregor was much more than thorough. He had to be stopped. Not only because of the little dragons in their golden shrouds and their poor mother… Not only for killing Father. Not only because he burned Sandor and laughed, nor to sate the Hound’s endless longing for revenge.

Not only to rescue Sansa. Not even to avenge the murder of Sandor's little, _innocent_ sister that the Hound tried very hard _never_ to think about.

He thought about his dead sister now, and saw clearly what he sought all his life, for as much as he convinced himself that it didn't exist.

Unlike Sandor who had been unjustly accused for it by the poxy, lying bunch calling themselves the Brotherhood without Banners, Gregor _had_ been at Sherrer and at Mummer's Ford. And at many other places. To some of them he went on his own, when Tywin looked away. Many dead children lay at his door.

Too many butchered children…

"I will challenge Ser Gregor in a single combat," Ser Peacock claimed loudly when they reached the gates. The sword on his hip was even more ridiculous than the one Sandor was wearing.

The Hound chuckled mockingly. He would have loved to see that if the situation was less dire. "You won't challenge anyone, boy," he informed the empty-headed would-be knight. "I will," he underlined. "And not for some chivalry horseshit."

"Then why?" the peacock dared ask.

"For the sole reason I should have done it years ago, as soon as I was strong enough to try," the Hound declared calmly.

"In the name of justice."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Cleganebowl, hopefully soon :-))
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Comments make the world go round


	18. Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, TopShelfCrazy, for proof reading this :-))

“The Lord of Light is not yet done with Joffrey’s Hound, it would seem.” Thoros of Myr, Asoiaf.

**Eighteen**

The castle gate shook and rattled in the hinges.

The sortie was not yet formed.

“What are these six waiting for?” Bronze Yohn rumbled, studying all the men at his disposal, and glaring at the six he just mentioned.

“They are from the Bloody Gate,” a knight with a maidenly face informed his liege. The six in question occupied places in the vanguard, _horseless_ and poorly armed. “They are as useful for fighting as statues in a sept.”

 _Useless,_ the Hound knew. He knew the knight as well, Redfort something, the boy who had custody of Stranger while the Hound climbed to the Eyrie.

“Get out of here!” Bronze Yohn roared, annoyed. "Up to the Eyrie you go, all of you. And you, Mychel. I shall not make my daughter a widow and an orphan on the same day if I can help it." Redfort, Royce's good-son from the sound of it, obeyed rapidly, though not without glancing with longing at the battle he was told to leave.

The six stood dutifully aside, but never joined the long column of men departing to the Eyrie. They just leaned on a castle wall, not very near the gate, but not far either, watching the preparation of the sortie as curious crones, bored and knitting to pass the time.

The Hound recognised them. They gave him food and he guarded them while they slept at the Bloody Gate. They must have fled to the Gates of the Moon before Cersei’s army.

“Why don’t you go up?” he asked.

“Why don’t you?” the eldest of the six said, shrugging wisely.

“I have work here,” the Hound replied with determination.

The Stranger would call on Gregor today, for a visit long due.

“So do we,” a broad-chested guard replied.

“You are not the smith, are you?” the Hound challenged him, half mocking and half hoping he might obtain a better sword in the last moment if he found the damned man. "Just fat and slow, aren’t you? Go up while you still can."

“No, in the Gates of the Moon I'm not the smith,” the guard responded stupidly and belatedly.

Of course he wasn't the smith. He was a poxy gnat and the Hound was dumb for making conversation with him.

Yet the man’s answer rang very oddly in Sandor's head though he could not decide why. Just like… like when Sansa told him she would sing for him gladly, meaning the music and nothing more.

The gates opened. The Hound buried all thought of the six cowardly guards and gave himself to the familiar song of steel. In the first rank, he rode out and cut through man and horse, ignoring the cries of the dying. He heaved a hard object in two in the thick of the battle, and realised it was the wooden ram the assailants had used to breach the gate. So the ridiculous blade he carried was maybe not that bad.

_It should better be good._

The Hound dealt blows left and right without mercy until the field around him was empty.

And at the opposite end was Gregor, mounted on one of his ill-tempered stallions…

In white armour, wearing a white cloak, holding high the shield with the snow white blazon of the Kingsguard…

The defenders withdrew behind the relative safety of the walls as they well should. The enemy was pushed behind. Sandor was left alone with his brother as he had demanded to be done.

The Hound did not wait.

He charged.

Gregor met him halfway. The strength of his onslaught was such that the Hound could barely withstand him.

He was stronger than the brother Sandor remembered, and yet… less cruel.

He did not try a cut at the obviously weak places in Sandor's mismatched armour in order to obtain an advantage and slay the naughty pup messily as soon as possible. Gregor attacked in pirouettes worthy of Ser Loras. He only missed a mare in heat to equal the Knight of Flowers in style.

But not so in force…

With every new blow, Sandor's strength wavered. It was a miracle he was not yet wounded or lost ground.

"What are you, brother?" Sandor asked with contempt through the slit of his helm, between two clashes. "Did they give you a special brew of poppy? Or some ointment to make you a bigger monster?”

Gregor grumbled deeply from his stomach, landing a blow that could have cut Sandor in two. Parrying it was the death of the pitiful metal club the Hound wielded, abandoned in the smithy to pose as a sword. The blade was bent, the steel irreparably ruined.

Gregor’s entire giant body roared and twisted with laughter, resembling the brother Sandor knew, but only now that the Hound was almost at his mercy. Fortunately, Gregor's last blow had forced Sandor to recede; he was still ahorse, and Gregor was wasting his time on mockery.

The Hound turned the Stranger back towards the castle before Gregor could catch up. He needed another weapon. Right before the gates, Stranger reared in pain. His rump was cut open by a savage blow. The Hound was thrown off. He rolled away and leaped to the gate as Gregor butchered his horse with pleasure. The animal screamed.

_So much for the Stranger._

The gnats let the Hound in and he was more mad than rabid.

“Is that Qyburn man still alive?” he shouted.

He was.

In long strides, the Hound made it to Gregor's pet, who enjoyed the tender company of maesters.

“What is that thing?” Sandor asked in a murderous growl. “And how can you kill it?”

“See, that is the core of the matter,” Qyburn said very weakly. “You can’t. The experiment has failed.”

_You can’t._

Gregor got to be a monster forever as a reward for his crimes.

"What do you mean, you can't?" the Hound snarled.

"He is dead, you see," Qyburn drooled. "You can't kill a deadman, a walking corpse, a wight… They go by many names. I… I educated him to be a knight since I woke him to undead life by the great art of necromancy, to make him serve the crown without mercy, and yet with most strident obedience. But… he sometimes forgets his lessons. Especially… especially if he remembers he was once Gregor Clegane. And you and that stupid girl have been so expertly reminding him of that… Maybe… Maybe if you cut him to pieces or burn him. I must advise you that I haven't tried either method. The queen would have had my head if I destroyed her precious Ser Robert by chance. A necromancer finds little employ these days, my lord."

"And whose head have they sent to Dorne, pray?" Sandor had to know everything now.

"From an aurochs, I think. A skull is a skull. The maester of the Martells should be able to confirm that the body to whom it belonged was taller than usual. But I am not privy to this, my lord, I just assume. The Grand Maester Pycelle measured the head to arrange for this sending, after I failed in keeping Ser Gregor alive. Then he gave me back his corpse in Kingsguard armour, saying I could bury it in the ditch or use him for my studies by the gracious permission of our queen. The royal smiths had enlarged the armour made for the little dog who ran away to fit the big one before the trial that killed him, Pycelle said when he dropped the parcel, and laughed. I didn’t quite understand him. But I have to confess that I was inspired when I saw the white armour. The queen was always most generous towards me… And I thought that she, being a lady, might one day need a valiant, unbeatable champion of her cause and that if _I_ could provide him-"

The Hound punched Qyburn straight in the face until the light left him.

No one in their right mind would have tried to _tame_ Gregor. Not even Cersei or Tywin. No wonder that the experiment went wrong.

Feeling useless, the Hound rejoined Bronze Yohn, who now stood on the walls overseeing the defences.

Royce held no grudge about his latest failure. "You did what you could," he estimated. "Dying would accomplish nothing."

"But it would," the Hound retorted darkly. "If _Gregor_ died as well."

Angry as that made him, Royce had a point. Without a sound strategy to take Gregor down first, his death would be as inconsequential as his life had been.

And since burning was not something Sandor was willing to try, not even to get the world rid of his brother, he should look for another sword.

The notion of cutting Gregor into pieces was far more appealing.

From the walls, the defenders threw stones and giant balls of snow and ice at the assailants. Gregor predictably turned to killing those men of his who deserted. Those still alive brought forward ladders and tried to attach them to the walls. The effort cost time, limbs and lives.

"If we can keep them down for a few more hours," Royce said with hope, "we may see the reinforcements arriving."

Yet against all armies of Westeros, Gregor might still survive.

The injustice of it was infuriating.

A gentle breeze came from nowhere, coloured with the stench of burning.

"Can you smell that?" Sandor asked, but no one except for him reacted to the scent.

He was being _sensitive_ , like some stupid girl and hated his weakness.

Rabid, he got off the walls and paced the yard where another sortie was being formed, following a routine of every siege. The enemy would assault the gates again, sooner or later.

The six useless guards from the Bloody Gate remained planted on the same spot.

"He is already forgetting his purpose," the bearded guard, who used to be drunk when the Hound first met him, complained to one of his companions who at least resembled a warrior. "I told you: he is more blind than most in his arrogance."

The gnat warrior nodded mutely.

An impossible notion fleeted through the Hound's hardened head. The six… useless as the statues in the sept. They effectively _did_ resemble the gods with the exception that they were all men. And then there were all those other men and one _woman_ he encountered in each and every fortress while he had been climbing to the Eyrie in his search for Sansa…

“Anyone still down here who has been often enough to the Eyrie?” he asked aloud, having to check his assumption.

A girl answered readily, glaring and unafraid of the likes of him. "I have. The name's Mya. Mya Stone. I just got back."

"Back?" the Hound asked shakily. "Is anyone up already?" _Were you with Sansa?_

"Lord Arryn, Alayne… I mean, Lady Sansa, and a large party of men digging through the tunnel. They should be in the Eyrie by now."

Sandor's heart drummed uselessly from unmeasured relief. _She will be fine, dog, she has to. The little bird will always find a manner to hop off and fly away._

"Is there… was there a servant who had stayed in the Eyrie before, after everyone left for the winter?" He remembered what he wanted to ask in the beginning and described the old woman he’d met. The crone mocked him for not being able to act as if he was more than his scars, though he was convinced of it himself, and then expected from others to humour his belief by looking straight in his face... The crone told him… to bugger off and that the lords would return in the morning… them being Sansa and her cousin. How could she have possibly known all that, about _him_ and about the future, if she was just a worthless servant?

"Of course, m'lord," Mya Stone replied cheerfully. "Old Jeyne is stark mad and she wouldn't come down. She may be dead by now."

The simple statement surprised the Hound, who found himself suddenly prone to believing in the most absurd notions, if it meant he could find a way to kill the new, improved Gregor.

The failed _experiment._

He had hoped for an answer that no such woman existed because she was not a woman but… the Crone.

“And where is the smith of the Gates of the Moon?” he roared nonetheless, wishing, wishing… not knowing what he wished for, not truly.

“Just behind you,” Harry the Peacock answered as if he was talking to a lackwit and not to the fearsome Hound. “Can't you see?” Ser Peacock was not killed in the first sortie as Sandor would have expected. Yet he had a bandaged leg, a broad cut over his pretty face and looked only half as eager to challenge anyone to a single combat.

The Hound turned around.

A stocky man he had never seen, shorter than Sandor, but extremely broad of shoulders, stood in the middle of the yard; exchanging ruined weapons, handing out new ones, looking as if he had always been _there_ since the battle started, except that the Hound was unable to see him.

“I met an old bearded man in the Sky,” Sandor approached the smith and said pensively, hoping no one was paying attention to his strange bleating. Yet he would gladly suffer the mocking of lesser men for a weapon that could _kill_ Gregor.

"I met a bearded _father,_ " he stressed. "He nursed my wounds and told me he was a friend of yours. He stole my boots and my sword and bid me ask another one of you.”

“To do what?” the smith wondered. “Kill, maim?”

 _Yes,_ the Hound thought avidly before he remembered his true purpose.

“To do justice,” he stated with ungodly calm.

It was the truth.

"I see," the smith said, all business-like and a perfectly ordinary man, handing Sandor a greatsword. "This should be good for you then."

The blade was dull grey in colour and sharper than a razor.

Without a word of thanks, without looking for a new horse, the Hound strolled to the gates.

"Let me out!" he commanded.

"But it's suicide-" a gnat complained.

The Hound opened the door for himself and was out before anyone could stop him. Passing by Stranger's mutilated corpse, he marched to meet Gregor.

 _It_ _is_ _justice,_ he reminded himself, contemplating the sky; grey and broad and limitless.

The world was…

What was the world?

How was it in truth?

He did not know.

He did not care.

Far behind him, yet always present in the back of his mind, the Giant's Lance was bathed in fog; pure, foamy and white. The Eyrie was almost invisible. Sansa must be there, safe and sound.

The Hound stood alone and horseless in the field, just like some empty-headed, _young_ knight who believed in gods, holding good castle-made steel which was nothing more than that. Yet a well-hidden piece of his unbelieving, aged soul insisted that the sword was… given to him by the Smith. Not just any smith. The one from the septs. He wondered if this new inkling of unfounded faith in the Seven was simply going to kill _him_ or help him kill Gregor.

The defenders halted on the walls, and the attackers in the field, observing Sandor's appearance as a new devilry.

He realised that he had lost his helm somewhere, maybe with Qyburn, or next to the smith's stand, or on his frenzied stroll to get out of the castle. Everyone stared at him, gawked and turned away. He didn't give two shits for it now.

“Ser Robert!” he shouted. "Or should I say _Ser_ Gregor Clegane! Brother! You are an arse and a criminal. Come here to answer for your crimes! For murdering Father and our sister! For all the _accidents_ in our family! For shoving my face in the coals when I was six… For all the slaughtered children and their poor mothers who have crossed your way… Let it not be said anymore that the House Clegane was built upon dead children!”

It was not a very noble formulation of his goals, but Sansa was not there to listen and be appalled by his manners.

The thing that used to be Gregor, no, that _was_ still Gregor at the bottom, strong like an ox until the end, having an upper hand even against a necromancer, dismounted and sauntered to his little brother. The monster’s armoured stomach shook from laughter as he advanced. The new Gregor had a bundle of muddy ribbons tied around his sword, in a mockery of lady's favours, cut out of tunics and breeches of his own men he'd sliced and killed, punishing them for disobedience.

The new Gregor acted just like the old one, at times.

Sandor had one favour, black as the three dogs that died to earn the name of the modest noble house Gregor had brought shame upon. "Come on, brave knight!" he provoked his brother.

He could not wait a moment longer.

Gregor obeyed like a good ser trained by the necromancer, bestowing a whirlwind of elaborate, flowery blows on Sandor. The Hound's own fury of counterattacks that would have killed _anyone_ did not even dent his brother's white enamelled armour.

Time passed quickly, long hours that felt like years.

The Hound endured and fought on, seeing no way to end it. He and Gregor were matched in strength as every time before.

Until the first shy sign of exhaustion made Sandor miss a step on his bad leg. Gregor nearly cut off his empty shield arm. None of the brothers carried a shield in their second duel that day. Sandor jumped away, needing a moment of respite. He would become weary and then…

How _stupid_ he must have been to believe he might be wielding a blade given by the gods to a man willing to do justice...

Sandor laughed at himself, so as not to cry.

Laughter freed him, cleansed him, blew a gust of fresh-smelling air into his mind, clearing it profoundly from all the burning, past and present; quenching the flames of anger that slowly consumed his soul.

The bloody, useless guards had been _six_ and death skipped them when the Hound watched over them, helping them for no good reason; for a bit of food they shared…

The guards had been six…

And he had been the seventh, the one whose face the six did not have… The one with half a face. The animal. The monster.

And when he crossed the Bloody Gate, during his climb to the Eyrie and stay in the Vale of Arryn, known for the Andals being _mad_ about the Seven, he met five men and one woman on his journey who might have shown him a different face of the gods in a passing moment of their lives… The Maiden, the Mother, the Warrior, the Father, the Crone, and finally the Smith, in that order.

The Hound's face was rightfully notorious, but it was not that face he needed now.

In the past, he mocked the gods, naming his horse after the absent god of death, constantly joking about the Stranger’s actions in his mind… Not once did he think that the god _journeyed_ with him, for good and for evil. The gods did not exist. And if they did, they were as awful as the people they created.

Against everything, against himself, the Hound believed… Sandor believed in gods. For there was nothing else he could do short of accepting a thundering defeat. And that was something he would never do _._ Not from Gregor. Not only because he would find immense joy in killing him.

Because it wasn’t _just_ and it wasn't _fair._

The Stranger could take the life of any creature.

Couldn't he?

Couldn’t he?

He’d better do so now.

The Stranger lifted the sword given to him by the Smith and advanced in slow, measured steps. Or maybe they were very fast, but the time slowed down to almost a standstill, dark and treacherous; a screaming abyss of crimes and past regrets.

Death, the Stranger’s most constant companion, walked with the god of death as a heavy hump on the back of the man who now chose to don the god’s face willingly, by believing in him.

Gregor's armour, which appeared unbreakable, shattered like glass; the limbs that could not be cut were sliced and maimed, oozing black blood.

Sandor was showered by stinky, oily, grimy liquid; his light grey armour of the Winged Knight slowly becoming soot black.

And when he heaved Gregor's neck in two, the death finally unburdened Sandor’s back and jumped to Gregor for all times; pleasingly definite and final, much more certain than the existence of the gods.

The Hound was himself again. No more and no less. The Stranger was gone, whether he had ever been there with him or not. He opened his brother's helm with shaky hands to confirm his success and found it _empty_ …

Pycelle must have underestimated or, more likely, simply insulted Cersei's pet necromancer, suggesting to him a task of an ordinary gravedigger, before following the queen’s orders of gifting him with Gregor’s remains. Ser Robert had always been a headless monster, and Gregor’s skull truly adorned the castle of the Princes of Dorne, like the skulls of the dragons once graced the Red Keep.

_So this is why you couldn’t speak brother, only grumble and laugh from your stomach..._

It was all nothing to Sandor now.

He gazed around and could almost taste the dark grey silence of the evening.

The field was empty like Gregor's helm and he was all alone. Everyone fled… _but why? Where?_ If Gregor was dead...

Fog swallowed the Giant’s Lance, thick and grey, mingling with the night. The Hound could barely see a portion of the soil before his nose.

But he could very well smell that most unpleasant scent once more.

The _burning._

In the misty sky there was a hum, the flapping of wings of a giant bird of prey.

Not a bird, never a bird, but a buggering, fire-spewing dragon.

The Hound stepped away from his dead brother and found temporary refuge behind his dead horse.

Not a moment too late.

White fire blazed from the sky, devouring what was left of Gregor and his snow-white armour.

The white dragon in the sky was not small, nor would there ever be a Lannister shroud large enough to cover it. Sweaty and nervous, the Hound backed towards the castle walls, grateful for the stinky blackening of his shiny armour that must have helped him fade into the night and hidden him from the beast’s anger.

The six were gone with the rest or maybe they had vanished, forever different from men, dwelling in seven heavens or, more likely, seven hells...

Sandor retreated through the open gates and the empty castle, reaching the woods behind it, hoping that not even the dragon could see clearly in the thick fog that had conquered the mountain. He still remembered the way up. He had to do in one night what took him three days before, when he wanted to reach the Eyrie with prudence and in good health. Now he only had to _reach_ it. If he could climb to the Sky, the tunnel might be open, warm, leading to the Eyrie.

_Leading to…_

He would not think further to whom.

He would climb.

In the woods, he caught up with the trail of men-at-arms on their way up. Cersei’s men embraced those from the Vale. No one paid the Hound any heed. The dragon's appearance or the news of it must have forced them to reconcile and chased them in the same direction. The Hound wondered if those reinforcements had ever arrived. Judging by the river of men retreating, they might have.

And Sandor had not even noticed the change of tide, immersed in duelling Gregor…

He hurried up in long strides and giant leaps, as big as his legs allowed them. Soon, he reached Stone.

Past the first fortress guarding the way to the Eyrie, the forest ended. The body of the mountain became barren and icy, life-threatening in the night and with fog.

The Hound nevertheless remembered the layout of the stairs cut out in cold stone. He braved them as fast as he could, always looking up.

Orange lights, orange lights from above!

Small flames were lit on the second fortress, by the vanguard for the rearguard, lighting the frozen stairway.

Up he went and more up, until that miserable fort. He barely noticed anything while he was passing through Snow...

After Snow, the stairs turned more slippery than ever and all the lights were gone. The defenders could not have lit all the way to Sky.

That wouldn’t be clever with the dragon flying around now, would it?

The Hound bent to the ice and continued climbing, leaving more men behind as he went. At some point, he even passed a mule, considered stealing her from some lightly wounded knight to get up faster, and gave up. He had come this far by himself.

He would be up in the Eyrie before at least half of the gnats who had started climbing before him from the Gates of the Moon.

In the Eyrie, he could rest. He could sleep. Drink, maybe. There would be a sweet scent between his sheets and a soft hand on his face. On his real one, ruined one, human one, and not on the black, angry face of the god of death.

Maybe, on another day, on a different day, he could be the Father, the Warrior, the Mother or even the Maiden; the Smith or the Crone. Maybe he could be just or brave; compassionate or innocent, the maker and the wise man… Maybe he could...

He fell and pulled himself further up on all fours.

Hungry and tired like a dog, he continued climbing.

Climbing, skating, sliding... Always up and up he went.

Where was the Sky?

Was he in the Sky?

His reason abandoned him and he did not know.

 _I’ll have a song from you,_ he rasped in his weary daydream with his eyes open, ashamed and wanting at the same time.

_Wait…_

Wasn’t everything alright now?

Didn’t he find Sansa?

He could not remember if he did, nor how she reacted to what he came to tell her.

The snow felt so warm, seducing him.

He would sleep now.

Hours, years later, a soft voice chimed over his head.

“Gods be good!” Sansa exclaimed. “Look! Down there, Robin. It must be him!”

“I don’t know, Sansa, this man has black armour,” the little lord attempted to temper his pretty cousin’s enthusiasm.

The six faces of the useless guards and Sandor’s own merged into one, noble and whole, luminous as his childhood dreams of knighthood in which the good still existed.

Wide-eyed, bright-eyed lies...

“I’m here,” he rasped weakly and listened to the soft thud of womanly boots in snow. “Here,” he repeated.

“Yes,” Sansa said and cradled his frozen head against her warm, sweet smelling chest. “Right here, my love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> I hope I will be able to update and complete this story a little bit faster now.


	19. Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, TopShelfCrazy for helping with this chapter.

_For Rose._

_xxx_

_xxx_

"Is it _all_ lies, forever and ever, everyone and everything?" Sansa Stark, ASOIAF.

**Nineteen**

“We have to get him in,” Robin tweeted ludicrously. Yet he showed more presence of mind than Sansa was able to muster.

“Do you think he killed his brother?” Sansa asked, cradling Sandor’s head against her chest as a precious possession, unable to think any further.

_Did you truly find joy in it?_

_Are you hurt?_

_You’re here, my love. You’re here._

She lightly explored his bare, cold hands, his poor face, his neck, the tiny portion of exposed flesh of his massive forearms under the vambraces.

Feather touch, bird touch.

_Wake up wake up wake up._

Sandor appeared unharmed. His armour was in place; not dented nor damaged, just… blackened. Like the one he wore in the past.

Dark mail and plate suited him better than the silvery tones of the Arryns… _The three black dogs that died…_ Sansa stifled a sob. Years ago she hadn't thought much of his story. She was relieved when he left her alone the night he’d told her how his grandfather had lost his leg and earned his sigil, for he had also told her other, _ugly_ things that night. Propositions that disturbed her, mockery she could not understand. But she instantly remembered his family history when he'd asked her to wear yellow.

_This once._

Now she wanted to cry for the three black dogs that died, or for him, inexplicably… And he had just returned to her so there should be no reason for crying.

The tale about the origin of his house was as noble as the legends about Brandon the Builder or Brandon the Shipwright, if less far-fetching.

_Sad and beautiful._

Sansa regretted the need to change into a plain woollen dress as soon as she returned to the Eyrie. In yellow silk, she could not have stood and waited for Sandor the entire night and most of the day that followed, at the beginning of the freezing tunnel in the Sky. How he had looked at her in his colours… He had made her feel… queenly. Sansa shivered from a painful mixture of contradictory emotions. Sandor made her feel… both weak and strong, afraid and confident... She checked him up again, pressed a bit harder on every portion of skin she could reach. There was no bleeding as far as she could tell.

_Are you well?_

Her love was peacefully asleep and heavy as a boulder. He no longer spoke since he cried out to announce his presence.

His hair was sweaty and plastered to his scars. And yet his skin was so cold! This realisation _frightened_ Sansa, stirring her into frantic pondering of what to do next.

He must have done his part, and now it was her turn.

She had thought, no, she had felt that this time he wouldn't have returned if he didn't kill Gregor…

It must have taken all his strength to do it.

 _Bewitch them,_ Petyr would counsel her. Whoever came after her now. Whoever she should marry next. Cersei would talk about a woman's weapon…

The soldiers had been continuously arriving to the Eyrie in small groups since a party of determined servants cleared out the tunnel under the auspices of a brooding, broad-shouldered Nestor Royce.

Myranda's father would not forgive Robin easily for mentioning in public his failed attempt at murder.

Yes, the battle was over, said the broken men-at-arms. No, it wasn't, others disagreed. They were hungry. And thirsty. They all agreed on that.

And wounded…

Some leered at Sansa with unwelcome heat in their eyes until she pulled the hood of her cloak over her head.

Bronze Yohn was dead. Or alive and challenging a mighty foe. Or taken prisoner by a dragonrider. Or burned alive and eaten by a wild dragon. Only one thing was certain; he had not arrived to the Eyrie.

There were as many stories as men in search of shelter. The battle was lost or won, it ended or it didn't; no one knew precisely. When the night deepened, Sansa noticed that some of the soldiers paid attention to _hide_ the sigils on their attire and weaponry.

A man was now passing next to her and Sandor and Robin; his breastplate plain grey. But on his back there was a shield, hidden under his cloak. When it billowed in the cold mountain wind, Sansa could see clearly from behind…

The boar of Crakehall!

They were among the more important Lannister bannermen. This could be… No, not the lord who should be older, but one of his sons or younger brothers.

“You,” Sansa stated in shock. “What are you doing here, my lord?" She tamed her initial bluntness, only to show it again. "You serve the queen!”

The man, who had almost passed by and entered the tunnel, turned around and spared a silent, cold glare for Sansa. She only noticed now how sturdy and squat he was. Nowhere near as tall as Sandor, but Sandor was asleep and needed _her_ to protect him now.

 _A boar, this noble is a_ _boar_ _. A boar killed King Robert, they said._

“What did you say, woman?” the cold-eyed boar asked, trying to peek under the lowered hood of her cloak, grasping the hilt of the longsword on his hip.

“Nothing, my lord,” Sansa replied meekly. Her voice broke at the end of the sentence. She had seen through the knight’s ruse. He’d meant to sneak into the Eyrie to do some mischief and he would kill her now to silence her. Her blood would run over Sandor and he would weep for her when he woke… “It is the wind. You must have misheard,” she claimed hoarsely.

_Go away go away go away._

There was no one close enough to whom she and Robin could cry for help. Thinking back on her earlier decisions, it was incredibly stupid that they waited for Sandor _alone_. They should have found some protection first.

But being far from Nestor Royce and his men had also seemed very prudent, and no one paid much attention to them until Sansa drew it foolishly to herself.

"There is meat and wine and pretty ladies in the castle for a f… fine k… knight like you," Robin squeaked, looking every bit like a lackwit the lords declarant of the Vale thought him to be. "My mother is not young any more. Please leave her alone."

The man gave them _and_ Sandor another look and spat into the snow. "I don’t care about your mother, boy. But I surely won’t waste my time on a crone who wants to be the Hound’s bitch for the night," he squeezed out and left, his eyes affixed to the salvation offered by the white towers of the Eyrie.

The castle windows were brightly lit; like beacons in the fog.

The Eyrie brimmed with all _kinds_ of men… Many were dangerous and desperate. Robin was nominally the lord, but anything could happen in the night. Lordships could change.

And they had to go _in_ there with Sandor.

Sansa took one arm off Sandor's head and wrapped it around her shaky cousin when Crakehall left. "How did you know you should tell I was old?" she wondered.

"Mother complained about becoming older," Robin said. "And the kidnapped ladies are young and pretty in the songs. No one steals the crones."

Sansa laughed and hugged both men to herself, the big one and the small one.

"Help me will you?" she asked and began pulling Sandor to the side, over a mildly descending mountain slope, grateful that the soil was frozen or they would not be able to move her love at all. Soon they were out of the main path of the arriving broken men, hidden behind a gust of snow.

"This is far enough," Sansa judged. It had to be. "Look after him, will you?" she asked of her cousin very seriously. "Don't talk to anyone! Don't attract _any_ attention!"

"And you?" Robin was suddenly petulant and angry. "Will you leave me… us… here to die?"

"I won't, I swear!" Sansa vowed. "I will return with help. Do you not believe in me by now?"

"I do," Robin went on one knee. "I love you, Sansa. Will you be my wife? I know that Mother wanted that for us."

Sansa stifled the demeaning laugh that threatened to burst from her chest, followed by a treacherous, single tear.

The cruel truth was, Robin was never going to be any maiden’s dream. But he had become a friend.

"You are still very young," she replied with kindness. "How you feel for me may change. The knights are a bit older than their ladies in the songs."

"I will wait," Robin said doggedly, standing up, not giving up on his mad notion of love. "Don't take long."

With that he sat next to Sandor and cradled his head in his lap. "I love him as well," he affirmed. “Because he tells me what I am to my face. He never averts his eyes when I have a fit and he doesn't tell how weak I am on the sly, to other people, when he thinks I’m not listening.”

“I know,” Sansa murmured and ran back up and into the tunnel, swifter than a wolf. She had done more exercise in the past week than in her lifetime. Her brains turned even faster from the forced exertion and her constant fearfulness was pleasantly diminished from it. To whom could she trust to protect her and Robin until a semblance of order was re-established in the Vale?

Not to Nestor Royce, nor to Harry Hardying, nor to Ser Shadrich; the last of the knights Petyr recruited, who always looked at Alayne in a very peculiar manner. _Wait…_ Ser Shadrich had come from King's Landing.

Didn't he?

With that thought she reached the cellars of the Eyrie and bumped into Mya Stone. Seeing Mya, Sansa _knew_ whom she could trust.

"Where is Ser Lothor?" she blurted. The two were lovers, if she was not wrong. "Is he not here? Has he come up?"

"Why should I tell you?" Mya asked, stubborn as her mules.

Sansa regretted having spent so much time listening to Myranda Royce bragging about her conquests in bed and learning how to flirt on Petyr’s behest, and not enough in befriending Mya, another bastard, as Alayne was supposed to be.

"Please," Sansa begged, but Mya turned away.

"Wait!" Sansa called after her, contriving feverish arguments in her mind. "Ser Lothor is a freerider. With Lord Baelish dead he has no employ. And if Lord Arryn is killed the new lords of the Vale may not have need of him. He would have to leave."

Mya halted in her steps and Sansa knew she'd won.

Having said that, she fainted. From relief or exhaustion, it mattered little… Sansa's legs turned into glass that shattered in a castle made of ice… Her last thought was for Sandor and Robin, dying in their sleep. It was common knowledge in the North that one should _never_ lay down to rest in snow-

"Wake up!" Mya cried, slapping her awake. "You were saying?"

"We have to carry someone up," Sansa whispered, coming to her senses. "He is down in the Sky with Sweetrobin."

"The burned man," Mya rightfully presumed. "He was asking for you.”

“Was he?” Sansa beamed weakly. _Did he say that he loved me?_ “What did he say?”

“Nothing much,” Mya shrugged. “He wanted to know if you were safe in the Eyrie.”

Sandor had told her in the past that he could keep her safe.

But Petyr had offered the same and it was another lie. Or, rather, there was no safety.

It was only an illusion.

Remembering all treasons done against her, Sansa noticed Ser Shadrich ogling her from the doorway of the towers of the Eyrie.

"Come here for a moment, please," Sansa pulled Mya in that direction. In her company, she already felt safer, whether that was possible or not.

Petyr was dead and if the dragons were truly here, as quite a few soldiers claimed, they might all die soon. Including Ser Shadrich, if his new masters reserved the same consideration for their catspaws as Petyr had nourished for Ser Dontos.

"Did you send a raven to Lord Varys about me?" she asked sternly. “Did you tell the queen?”

Ser Shadrich’s self-assured, predatory grin lessened.

"Don't bother to answer," Sansa continued haughtily, surprised by her own reaction. "I know that you did."

Just like the unknown Crakehall down the mountain, Ser Shadrich drew his sword.

The odds changed so fast and Sansa's courage faltered. She was afraid and endangered and acted _stupid_ again. She shouldn't have provoked this.

Mya drew a _knife_ and stood in front of Sansa. "Careful," she said. "She's a lady. I'm a bastard."

"And I am a knight," Ser Lothor grumbled behind them, much taller and probably more capable than Ser Shadrich.

Ser Shadrich sheathed his sword and spat.

 _Why does everyone have to spit today?_ Sansa thought, disgusted.

"I was just going to look for a whetstone. A man has to hone his _sword_ ," he drooled offensively and backed into the tower.

"Please," Sansa insisted feverishly with Mya and Ser Lothor, "we have to descend to the Sky and carry a man up. Lord Arryn is with him. He is… he is Sandor Clegane and he has saved my and Sweetrobin's life. I… if I survive I swear that I shall keep you in my service. Please help me."

Ser Lothor didn't need further encouragement.

Sansa laboured as in a dream. Finding poles and sturdy linens to make a portable bed. Running down. Wiping Sweetrobin's nose into her gown.

Ser Lothor wanted to drag Sandor up by himself, but Sansa wouldn't have it. She walked next to her love and helped with pulling, felt better from it, felt almost useful instead of useless; almost strong and brave.

_Wake up will you?_

_Wake up wake up wake up._

They found Nestor Royce in front of Robin's bedchamber, standing with two of his best knights.

"Can I not come in, my lord?" Robin asked calmly.

"Or course, my lord," Nestor said obsequiously. "But him? He’s a criminal."

"It would seem that he defeated Ser Gregor Clegane, who was perhaps sent by the Queen Regent to murder me. She never liked my mother. By doing this, Sandor Clegane won a place in my guard of honour and a heartfelt thanks of many widows and orphans left by Ser Gregor in the realm," Robert affirmed. His hands began to tremble uncontrollably. “My guards can stay in my chambers at need. I need him to restrain me when I suffer from my ailment.”

"That remains to be seen," Nestor disagreed. "Is my cousin here with you?"

Robin opened his mouth to say that he wasn't, most likely, but Sansa had a good sense to lie faster.

"I was told that Lord Royce was victorious. He has just entered the tunnel," she invented with utmost calm. "We-"

Nestor stormed off with his men.

"He'll know that you lied," Robin said.

"Will he?" Sansa wondered. "When he starts asking for his cousin, the soldiers will tell him that they had seen him in at least ten different places…"

"That may be," Ser Lothor said. "But eventually he'll know."

"Do you know anyone _you_ can trust?" Sansa asked. "A group of men to guard us until morning?"

Maybe the sun would come out and everything would be clearer. Maybe Sandor would wake soon.

"I'll find some," Ser Lothor said. "Those that cannot count on warm welcome in the Vale."

So first they laid Sandor in the great lordly bed of the Arryns, in the middle, just like… before… Sansa remembered with trepidation. Ser Lothor and Mya removed his armour. Sansa… dared not. If she took part, she might have betrayed the secret of her love. But when they left, she covered him with blankets and furs and stroked his hair and the side of his head where no hair or beard grew.

He was warmer.

_Wake up wake up wake up._

An old servant barged in though no one had called her and conjured a fire in the hearth. Later, a young man with a maidenly look brought a crate of chopped wood to feed it. Robin thanked them profusely.

Then, Ser Lothor returned. Mya was not with him. Sansa and Robin stepped out into the corridor to see the men he found.

To Sansa's displeasure, half of them were former _Lannister_ men including the Crakehall who pondered murdering her.

"This brat-" the chill-eyed boar began-

"Is the lawful Lord of the Eyrie," Ser Lothor interrupted and pointed at the chamber door before which they all stood, luxuriously carved with the pattern of moons and falcons. "If his own bannermen don't kill him tonight or tomorrow, he'll be able to deal out rewards and grant safe passages through his lands."

"Brune speaks truly," another Lannister man said, "I've seen the brat at court. He's a bit bigger now, but it's him. It’s a wonder he lives. Pycelle didn't give him more than a year after the old Hand died - Jon Arryn, his father.

Robin began to cry.

"And the Hound-" Crakehall began.

"-is none of your business, my lord," Sansa said icily, surprising herself again.

Her love slept on the featherbed where they had first discovered each other. No one would touch him. A dog was no lesser animal than this boar with his cold tusks.

Slowly, she continued, wishing to speak with poise like her mother. "It may be beneficial for you to accept this agreement. The Vale is untouched by war. Should you prove loyal, we will honour our word."

"Most lords have shit for honour," Crakehall affirmed and was probably not wrong. "The only difference with the Lannisters is that they pay their debts. How do I know you’ll do that? I mean to survive and return to the West!"

Sansa lowered the hood of her cloak and spoke from her heart. _No more fear, no more fear._ She had had enough of anguish… And if she was to die soon, she would not die lying.

"Some people say that my father died for honour,” she began. “That he could have saved himself had he been _less_ honourable. Are they lying, my lord? Or are they telling the truth? Is there a truth? Or are there only lies? Am I still my father's daughter? Sometimes I know not. But I know that I can't even _conceive_ going back on a given word of my own free will. It would be against everything I was taught to be. Against everything I still am."

This was Father's voice, in her. Not Mother's.

 _Poor Sansa,_ dead Petyr laughed in her head. _Will you ever learn, sweetling?_

The men fell silent, pondering, calculating.

Sansa closed her eyes and wondered if it would come to swords now, if they would all fight each other and if the strongest would prevail.

No one spoke.

She was weary. She was so very, very tired. She and Robin had waited for Sandor the entire night and most of the day that followed. It was evening again, dark and foggy.

“You would have reason to hate our gracious queen, wouldn't you?” Crakehall finally observed. "My lady," he added as an afterthought.

“I _loved_ your gracious queen in my innocence,” Sansa said with melancholy. “She rewarded my devotion with my Father’s head.”

"If that would be all, my lords," she ended with dignity. "I shall retire to rest. As will my cousin, Lord Arryn," she added. "I trust you not to have us killed or raped in our sleep."

This did it. They all looked ashamed. Sansa had no doubt that most of them could kill or rape someone. But perhaps not in their right minds, not when the thick of the battle was behind them. She could only hope she was right.

Besides, Sandor carried a sword now, and he would wake.

_Wake up wake up wake up._

She stepped back into the chamber as if she were a queen who feared no treason.

Robin followed, closing the door.

Sansa pressed a tremulous ear to the lock; to spy how matters developed further.

"I'll take the first shift," Ser Lothor grunted.

"I'll keep you company," Crakehall retorted, flatly. "We combine by two, one man of the Vale and one from the West."

"We watch each other," Ser Lothor agreed.

"You," Crakehall grunted boarishly at someone else. "Get ale rather than wine. And food. Best if we remain vigilant."

Boots scurried down the corridor. Very soon, the only sound left was the throwing of the dice.

It was what soldiers did to pass the time.

Sansa calmed slowly and walked to the bed.

Fire cracked merrily in the hearth.

She couldn't remember the names of the servants who had been so diligent to start it for their lord. Or ever seeing them in the Vale before today.

Robert followed, shaking mildly. His young face twitched.

"We are back at the beginning," he said, and yawned like the boy he was. "I don't know about you, but I will sleep. Or I will probably shake until midday meal tomorrow and look like I shall die."

And he occupied _his_ edge of the bed, away from Sandor who had unknowingly seized the middle.

Robin succumbed to deep slumber as soon as he closed his eyes.

Sansa remained restless.

Sandor was now much warmer to touch. Yet she was reluctant to undress and lay next to him; most unwilling to remove his tunic and much less the breeches.

Her moonblood was at the end. Three full days had passed since the night when it arrived… Since the night when they...

The next evening, she would be completely free of it.

Even now, if she cleaned herself before going to bed...

They could…

She shuddered from the thought.

It was one thing to be brave and give herself to Sandor when her body was wide awake from all caresses and attention she didn’t know existed, on a wave of pleasure she had been experiencing… and drowning on _love_ in his eyes. And quite another to ponder it in cold blood.

He would want to… He might call her a liar if she went back on what they had done… If she didn’t… If she only… touched him… touched herself on him like they did before. He might think she didn’t love him. She could look the part of his wife, but if she refused him… he might not take it well.

It was all a man needed when his blood was up after the battle, did he not say so? Wine… red and sour... Or a woman… And it was the woman he’d mentioned with longing.

And Sansa didn’t want him to leave her to go _drinking_ when he woke, though all men drank, even her Father. But most of them not as much that they would stumble drunk into the bed of a twelve year old girl, and then offer to both save her and kill her in the space of a few moments.

The thought of having him inside her scared her anew. At the beginning it had hurt terribly... All occasions when she was groped and manhandled against her will in the past returned to her; unwanted and engraved in her core.

She wanted Sandor to wake and kiss her.

If he kissed her, she might know if she would be able to…

She wanted to.

But she didn’t know if she would be able to.

Not consciously, not deliberately, not in cold blood. Maybe, _probably_ , in the thick of the moment like before, only that way. Then she would forget Joffrey dancing with her, Petyr kissing her, Marillion forcing her, Tyrion with his ugly, jutting manhood…

And Sandor’s enraged, disfigured face above her own.

She remembered that moment now in great, bright, unfavourable detail. The other battle. The Blackwater, burning green. What she had purposefully forgotten or set aside before. She had _thought_ he would kiss her and she had closed her eyes. When she reopened them, hatred dripped from his gaze... for her… He forced her to sing for her life… He was able to kill her then… He was able to do anything… But he didn't.

He didn't

He didn't.

She could almost breathe again and laughed at herself for misremembering that he had kissed her as she imagined he might have done. It was madness.

It was weak, misplaced love.

It was stupid love.

It was love.

What if he had forgotten how it was now between them? What if he woke and did with her what he habitually did with women after battle? What if he was feverish and did not recognise her? She should sleep elsewhere.

 _Sansa, Sansa, Sansa._ How silly can you be?

This was in the past.

He would remember, he had to. How could he forget?

She would never be able to forget him, not if she was forced to marry a different man every day...

The thought that she should not love Sandor because they were not married briefly crossed her mind, but retained little importance.

She loved him.

She did not give herself to him to gain any benefit, like Cersei might have seduced Stannis’ horse if by that she could earn his rider's favour.

Sansa had dishonoured herself in the eyes of the world, but not in her own eyes.

Dice rolled on the outside, accompanied by friendly, manly chatter.

Warm. Warm. Sandor’s warmth called to her now.

_Not yet._

In a feverish motion, Sansa found the wash basin and the privy and… cleaned herself between her legs, stiffening as she proceeded from unprovoked, unexplainable fear.

She was as ready as she would ever be to face Sandor's wishes from her.

Back in the bedchamber, she stepped out of her gown, but kept her shift and smallclothes firmly in place. In bed, she pulled his tunic up to feel him against herself. She forgot half of her worries by the time she was that far, basking in that wonderful sensation only he, or his memory, had ever caused her.

The sensation he might have caused even if she didn’t love him. Which was perhaps… natural. Myranda could feel _that_ for a dozen different men and never fret about it.

But Sansa loved Sandor and she was well aware of it now. It was not just _that_ sensation, natural or not. It was fearing for him and feeling for him. It was melting into tears or wishing to hit him or leave him when he was being hateful. And yearning for those moments when he was not. When he was just… hers... and at ease with her.

Loving him made matters in bed both better and worse, easier and immensely more difficult.

What if he-

His grip on her waist was iron when he stirred, interrupting her anguishing, and yet his look was lost when he opened his eyes.

A pup out of a kennel, she couldn't help thinking.

“I’ll have a song from you,” he murmured and seemed… tortured.

It was what he would tell her in her dreams, before climbing to her bed, when she was all alone in King’s Landing and in the Vale. She hadn't had that dream since he had found her in the Eyrie.

He was squeezing her very hard now, causing pain.

“Sandor!” she called to him. “Please stop.”

He didn’t seem to hear her.

She wriggled out of his embrace, happy that this was _possible_ and then immediately missed his touch and smell. When he calmed down, she crawled close to him and remained very still. His arms finally closed around her in a pleasingly firm way. He breathed steadily.

Asleep again.

Sansa felt thoroughly crippled.

She could not let the man she loved take her freely. She could find joy in his embrace, take pleasure from him, give some of it back. But any attempt of his to be fully in charge was… horrifying.

Was it rude to kiss him while he slept?

She tasted the skin on the side of his neck and inhaled his scent, relinquishing all thought.

“I’m dreaming,” he said and he wasn’t, she could tell.

“What happened?” she asked. “Did you…?”

“Yes,” Sandor confirmed.

“How does that feel?”

“Right,” he replied with an ugly grin of accomplishment, not sparing another word for Gregor.

"Thank the gods," Sansa said, burying her head in the crook of his neck.

“And your dragon prince is here,” he added after a long while.

“Is he?” Sansa stiffened. “He hasn’t been up here.”

 _Others take him._ The very rude thought about Aegon came unbidden. She hadn't even met him.

“Good,” Sandor said simply about Aegon’s absence. “No more yellow?” he teased her.

“It was cold.”

His hands wandered under her shift, finding her breasts, fondling them at will.

“How is this?” he said.

“Warmer,” she replied truthfully. Her guts… ached.

Possessed by his presence, she guided his hand to the edge of her smallclothes and showed him he was allowed to pull them down, blushed, remained mute.

_I am here, my love._

He glanced behind him warily, chuckled quietly. “The bloody boy,” he observed. “Can’t he sleep somewhere else?”

“No,” Sansa said, _glad_ for her cousin’s presence, unseemly as it was. "It is not safe."

They had to be silent and discreet. This necessity could onset the softness she craved, before she could venture into giving in to the demands of her body. Before she could even consider fully _his_ demands. As natural as they might have been.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Sandor said wearily. “I may be too tired.”

“What?” Sansa did not understand.

“Maybe I can’t do much with you,” he said carefully.

“What do you mean?” Sansa felt like a sheep, bleating. She could tell that what he just confessed bothered him, though she was not at all certain that she understood his meaning correctly and entirely.

He pulled her in for a kiss in place of an answer.

They lay side by side in a tight embrace, facing each other.

His smallclothes were miraculously gone by then, without her noticing how or when.

She felt his manhood growing against her stomach and wrapped one leg around his middle to… feel him. The angle was strange and she didn’t think they could…

“We can’t like this, can we?” she whispered.

“Difficult,” Sandor expressed his opinion between two kisses.

“Will you hate me if we don’t…?”

He was a little inside her, she could tell. Not far enough that it would hurt. His breath hitched. “Gods,” he said. “Slow. Slow down… Gods, Sansa. Will you… how much will you hate me if we do?”

"I don't know," she answered truthfully.

She moved by chance and he slid in some more, stretching her, causing sharp pain.

Sansa rolled away from him, to the side.

“Hurts,” he concluded.

She nodded, facing the fire in the hearth, ashamed of not being able to. “I can’t,” she said meekly. "This still scares me."

“Climb on me,” he said.

“It’s not right,” she said.

“There is no right and wrong in this,” he argued.

“It is not what you want.”

“I don’t want your tears. I’ll love what I can get,” he grumbled and embraced her spontaneously from behind, pressing himself against her back. "I loved it every time," he clarified, pulling her hair up above her head, breathing softly behind her ear.

His huge hand was under her shift, palm pressed low on her stomach, just above her exposed woman's place. His other arm sneaked under her waist and grabbed her hip.

The blankets were above them, hiding their bodies from view. If anyone barged in now, they wouldn't see much, would they? Not even Robin if he woke, and he never did before…

Sandor's hair brushed the back of Sansa's neck by chance, sending shivers down her spine. Her woman’s place… ached.

“Kiss me there,” she demanded on a whim, showing the piece of offended skin that tingled from encountering his hair.

He did and extended her invitation to kissing and sucking her ear. Sansa arched into him. Her legs parted slightly as she did that with the result that his manhood ended… just there, not unpleasantly.

"Guess what," he whispered, intrigued, "I never tried it like this before…"

The hand he had on her stomach travelled down to her woman's place, found it soft and moist.

"No, that's not all," he shook his head and _bit_ her neck. "I never did anything that comes close to us like this… Not once. Never loved anyone."

By that time Sansa was a mess of softness, inebriated by both his words and his touch. She and Sandor were the only thing that existed in the world.

She tingled from tip to toe and spread her legs further. Her right leg ended up stretched, flung a bit backward and hooked above his. Sandor slid inside her from the back and it was… painful and not so. And maybe, thankfully, he was not as hard as the first time.

Or maybe he was as hard, but could not go in as deep.

Her raised leg lowered back down from surprise and now both her legs were joined and straight. Soft, weak, boneless...

Sandor stayed as he was.

“Fuck,” he said lovingly.

She preferred _gods._

Language aside, she could tell _this_ was good for him when he began to move and had to stifle his grunts by kissing her shoulders through her shift.

In the path opened by his manhood, her discomfort was bearable, spiced with a wave of incredible warmth, which increased whenever he sank _in_ after scraping her walls.

She could do this.

But she couldn’t see his eyes as they lay. This wasn’t good because her pleasure would probably not come or it would be less, but at least she would not quaver. She'd be able to let him have her, though she might not be able to let herself go.

She lowered her hand to the place where they were joined, touched his manhood while it was in her, felt her own wetness, pulled it back up. Felt thoroughly ashamed. Felt terribly _good_ from feeling ashamed. Almost found her pleasure abruptly from the unseemliness of what she allowed herself to do. Breathed in and breathed out. Calmed down, uncertain of where that road led to. Scared by her own body.

Sandor resumed kissing her ear and continued moving, murmuring _fuck_ and _gods_ at the same time.

It was pleasing now, what they did, and yet she yearned for something she could not name. Or she would tell him, ask him…

The unusual intrusion went on…

and was over in a while, to Sansa's… profound regret.

Sandor pulled out of her. Warm liquid trickled down the small of her back. He cleaned it in the sheet in a practised way, and stuck the dirty linen under the bed, far from her, triggering annoying questions in her head as to how frequently he had done this in his past, and with how many ladies.

 _You almost did it with at least three men,_ she told herself, remembering Tyrion, Marillion and Petyr. Had she been older when she and Sandor met again, only the gods knew what she would have done and with whom.

“This was not so good for you, was it?” Sandor wondered, sounding as insecure as Sweetrobin.

And kissed the corner of one of her eyes.

"It wasn't what I thought," she said, kissed the top of his nose, smiled, blushed, grinned. "But it wasn't bad," she reassured him, searching frantically for more words to explain to him.

In her head full of courtesies, none came.

They were facing each other again and his warm gaze was all she ever wanted.

And what they did was… Good. Or just not good enough. As maddening as the other times she touched herself on him. But not as pleasurable as the last time he’d let her do that. Probably it was the most she could get out of… coupling, with her past. Hopefully it would get better with time.

It didn’t matter. It was him and no other and she could give him what he needed. So that he knew that she loved him. She wanted him to be certain of that and never call her a liar again. And she knew that if she wanted her pleasure, he would let her climb on him, use him, do with him as it pleased her… He would not take _only_ what he wanted.

It was a beginning. Maybe it was also an end.

It was more than good.

Her body hummed, awakened. Taken somewhere, left somewhere, shaken, stirred, on edge. Abandoned in the beginning. Or in the middle. Maybe close to an end.

It was wonderful.

“How much can you sleep?” she exclaimed, amazed, when she noticed his eyes closing _again_. Before she could even wrap her thoughts fully about what they did and give him an honest, more complete approximation of how it was for her.

“When? After this?” he rasped back at her. “Always, a little. Usually? I stay alert." His gaze drifted sideways, checking where his sword was.

 _As a guard dog,_ Sansa thought, terrified.

“And when you are with me you can sleep?” she had to ask.

"Yes. I knew it since the bloody battle. The other one, with all the burning... I refused to lead the fourth sortie. I left. Between your sheets… In your bed it would smell fine, I’d thought. I would be able to sleep. I went to your room and I… I never wanted to wake…” he murmured, dozing off.

What he said was… incredibly beautiful.

Gregor was dead and Sandor was in her care.

And Sansa had stopped being the poor liar he remembered. She sometimes hated her new ability, but she had acquired it all the same. She would serve her future suitors lies and Arbor gold.

She would not marry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Slow updates.
> 
> Comments make the world go round.


	20. Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, TopShelfCrazy, for your patience with my mistakes :-))

“Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same." Cersei Lannister to Sansa, ASOIAF.

**Twenty**

The sun was shining through the high windows framed with slender, pointed arches when Sansa opened her eyes. The Eyrie was the castle from the songs; bathed in bright winter sunlight and covered with resplendent snow.

But...

She was alone in bed!

She sat up abruptly, fearing that Sandor had left her again.

_Why? Why? Why?_

Her fingers searched the crumpled bedding for the coarse white weaving of his old cloak - forgotten under her summer silks in King’s Landing, Sansa finally remembered.

_This time he left me with nothing but his scent between the sheets_

She blinked and looked around, ready to cry…

…and saw Sandor seated on the stone floor in front of the hearth with Sweetrobin.

Huge, harsh palms with craggy, gnarled fingers stretched next to the shaky, thin hands of the lord-child of the Eyrie, warming up over freshly rekindled fire.

Sansa relaxed in bed, allowing herself to inhale its perfume. Joy filled her soul.

Of course he hadn’t left her.

He couldn’t stay away from her.

He’d told her so, and she trusted him with all her heart, amazed that she still possessed the ability to believe.

“Good morning, Sansa,” her cousin said dreamily, noticing her awake. “It’s a lovely day.”

Robin was happy.

But Sansa's second glance at her lover told her immediately that Sandor was not. Fully dressed and armoured he was himself; threatening and unfriendly.

His scarred face was a mask of indifference and sullen anger. He stared forward mutely, as if he had never smiled, grinned or gazed at Sansa with adoration. As though their time together in the Vale had never existed. As if their love had been just one more lie Sansa was foolish to trust.

She rubbed her eyes harshly, trying to understand his sudden change of heart and failing, just like she could never fully grasp it in the past.

_Why? Why? Why?_

_Why do you still find joy in scaring me now that I’m yours?_

It was a new day. They loved each other. Gregor was dead. Cersei's men were broken. Traitor knives had not reached Sweetrobin in the dark. With the arrival of light, order might return to the castle and to the Vale, reining in the passions of the battle, ending the freedom to commit crime unseen in the nightly gloom.

“It’s a wonderful morning,” Sansa told both men, trying to sound reassuring and confident.

Her sincere attempt at radiance put Sandor further on edge. He stormed from the fire to the window, opened it and leaned over, studying the sky.

They could not see nor hear the waterfall from the lord’s chamber. Sansa wondered if it had frozen in the few last, very cold days.

_Alyssa's Tears._

_They will melt today._

The sunrays were hot when they landed on Sansa’s face and hands through the open window. She closed her eyes, basking in the sensation; drawing strength from it. She was Winterfell’s daughter and yet she needed warmth to thrive.

She had looked for it in vain in the south.

And despite her lowered expectations from life, she found the hidden source of heat in the coldness of the Vale. _Love_ found her… offered freely and generously by this impossible man who could not stay with her or away from her for long. Presently he continued seething at the window, not directing her a word. Was this better than snarling?

Sansa told herself that he couldn’t embrace her or kiss her in her cousin's presence, could he?

It would be different if they were married.

She rejected the preposterous notion. Sandor had never proposed to her. Probably he held marriage in the same low esteem as knighthood, knowing the falseness of it. _He spits on knights and their vows,_ she remembered. Such a terribly ugly thing to say to a lady. _Why should he think of marriage vows as any different?_

_Vows are words and words are wind._

Sansa had learned, to her sorrow, that her parents’ marriage was an exception; it was uncommon to find love in alliances between the highborn.

In light of that truth, Sandor’s unconditioned plea for Sansa’s love seemed much more honourable than what Ser Mychel Redfort had done; promising marriage to Mya Stone after taking her maidenhood, and then marrying Yohn Royce’s daughter.

Unlike Ser Mychel, Sandor had eyes only for Sansa, before and _after_ she gave herself to him. No one else merited his interest, only varied degrees of more or less mocking indifference.

“Sandor…” she addressed him very carefully, treading on eggshells.

Before she could ask if he was unwell and if it was something she unknowingly did, strong banging nearly knocked down the door.

Robin waddled to open it instead of crying for servants or waiting for Sandor to do it as he would have done a week ago. He had grown so much, though not in size. His hair, long and silky, fell to his waist, over the doublet with blue moons and golden falcons he had not yet properly donned or tightened around his skinny body.

The square head of Nestor Royce appeared in the doorway, framed by the broad shoulders of Lothor Brune and the unknown Crakehall, not letting him pass.

Sansa buried herself under the blankets, blushing, remaining very still. Lord Nestor's unwanted appearance made her realise she was wearing only her shift. Worse, her gown was not in evidence. _Where did I put it?_

She must have overslept after… she and Sandor loved each other. Memories flooded her. His palm on her belly, on her hip; his lips on her back, his manhood- their joint movement- the warmth and the slickness- His patience with her.

She should think of _trouble_ at her door, of what to say, what to do. She had to remain unmarried and as little captive as possible. She didn’t dare hope she might be free. She didn’t dare imagine she could go home.

She couldn’t think of any of it.

She wanted to run away with Sandor and be loved, wishing exactly what Cersei Lannister had mocked her for after she had flowered. She would live from his moments of gentleness between his poor moods.

 _Poison, love is poison,_ the queen was right, drunk and bitter, whispering to Sansa in Maegor's Holdfast. _Sweet, but it will kill you all the same._

And Sansa would gulp it down willingly.

She wished she’d woken earlier to whisper to Sandor how much she adored him in the closeness of a shared bed and spy on his expressions of sweet surrender before he became… the Hound.

She realised she had hoped that with Gregor dead everything would be different.

_Easier._

But the world was as awful today as it had been the before.

She peeked out from between the sheets, careful not to reveal herself to their late morning visitors, noticing that her gown was folded _under_ the bed, and thankfully invisible from the door.

A _bird_ circled in the patch of empty blue sky she could also glimpse from her hiding place. A large, white one.

 _Not a bird,_ she pondered dumbly. _.._

In her glowing happiness, Sansa had forgotten about the dragon and the prince riding it.

“White and golden wings! Noble maw! What’s a falcon in comparison? A sparrow, a _fly_!” Robin exclaimed with wonder.

The dragons were dangerous but this one was also… beautiful.

“His rider’s in your hall, my lord,” Nestor Royce cleared his throat. “His beast found us in this ungodly sun after the fog. The dragonrider claims to be Prince Aegon, the only son and heir of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.”

“I'll be right there,” Robin said bravely. "Do give me a moment to get ready, my lord," he dismissed Nestor.

“Prince Aegon bids you to immediately release his betrothed, Lady Sansa Stark, as a sign of your good will, or he will burn the Eyrie to to the ground,” Nestor roared from the door before Lothor Brune slammed it closed, locking his lordship out.

“Betrothed?” Robin asked, perplexed. "How’s that?"

"I never said yes to that offer, sent by Lord Varys, the master of whispers, to Lord Petyr," Sansa explained, sitting up on bed, pushing away the bedding decisively. "I said I was held captive here, unable to make my own decisions, to avoid answering. I made it very clear that I was the queen's prisoner, not yours."

 _Did she?_ She thought she did, but she couldn't remember her own letter to Varys with precision.

Sandor snorted. "That subtle distinction will matter little to the bloody dragon. If he can burn us, he will."

"I see," Robin said to both of them, green and white, wringing his hands, staring at Sansa, blushing, then turning away to face the wall. Sandor was already gazing respectably away. "I'm sorry, Sansa. I shouldn't have looked at you before giving you a chance to make yourself presentable."

Robin was not a very little boy like Sansa still saw him. He knew a truth or two about boys and girls by now.

Terribly embarrassed by her own neglect of propriety, she put her gown on very rapidly, shaking the dust off her sleeves. The crone who had made the fire did not sweep under the bed. At least there were no mice in her bodice and the nightly cold had taken care of the sweat.

She wished she could leave with Sandor now.

But what of Sweetrobin, Mya, Ser Lothor, the servants… the queen's men who helped her, changing their allegiance? How could she be happy knowing that they… burned?

"Let us see what Prince Aegon wants in return for his peace," she chirped calmly and smiled at both _men_ , the small and the tall one; the very young and the older one. "He hasn't burned us in our sleep so he means to talk."

Sandor looked stormy. "You know what he wants," he told her dryly.

_Do you fear losing me? Is that it?_

"We’ll see about that," she said stubbornly, sounding like her sister Arya. "If he insists in calling me his betrothed by force," it sounded like a plan when she said it, not a girlish dream or a gesture of sheer desperation, "you and I will jump through the waterfall again. Robin will then lie to Aegon that I threw myself from the highest tower of the Eyrie and took my own life. Because… my heart was broken and not by him."

Robin stared at Sansa with boyish, unbound love. "I understand," he said, nodding wisely.

Sansa was very afraid he misunderstood everything. _You don't think it is you who broke my heart, my Sweetrobin, do you?_

"You'd do that?" Sandor asked, grey eyes showing signs of vibrant life.

_Shining with hope, hope, hope…_

Against the ever present foundation of simmering anger.

"Yes," she replied, breathless, enraptured by the reappearance of the man she loved behind the mask. "Right now if I could. Wouldn't you?"

"Then why don’t you?" he continued angrily. "Or do you want to see if the prince is handsome before you make up your mind?"

"What if the prince doesn't believe Robin if he doesn’t see me first? He has already gotten it _wrong_ about me being his prisoner!" Sansa hoped Sandor would see beyond his wrath and stop expecting the worst from her. He wasn't stupid. She'd stopped averting her eyes long ago and had never called him dog. _Not once._ If he couldn’t do it, he’d always stay in Gregor’s shadow; bitter and scarred, even if he killed his brother a hundred times over.

She couldn't say this to him. Some truths were too cruel to be told. Like Robin’s disability and probable sudden death.

Sansa wished she could help Sandor not to be hateful when there was no reason to be, but it was clear from the past days that her love might not be enough.

"I just," she stuttered, "I need to tell Prince Aegon in person that I am not in favour of our marriage in hope that he’ll not retaliate against the Eyrie. "

“What if he burns you?” a concerned rasp escaped Sandor.

Sansa didn't think that far. Would it be worse than Ser Ilyn’s blade? Sandor surely thought so. _He’s been to hell and back. He fears a new burning more than death._

Robin squeezed Sansa’s hand, his palm cold and clammy; long-nailed. Sansa chastised herself for not seeing to it that his nails were cut.

“I am the lord,” he peeped. “I won’t let the dragon hurt my beloved cousin...”

“At least I won’t have to marry any man,” Sansa affirmed with passion, seeing only one advantage in her possible demise.

She didn’t understand why Sandor welcome her words with a weary, defeated look.

xxxxx

xxxxx

Aegon was admiring the Moon Door when Sansa and Robin entered with at least thirty guards. The knights of the Vale were braver and truer in the morning, or just more capable to hide their fears in a larger company. Those from the west kept their heads down and sigils hidden; all except Sandor who openly showed his face.

Everyone shunned and circumvented him now. Killing Gregor was not enough to win the love of the fellow men-at-arms.

The Moon Door was open. Its white doorframe burned. In the middle of it, in the open sky, a white dragon’s head could be seen, with golden horns and clever, aged eyes of molten gold.

“Lady Sansa,” the prince said and smiled; tall, silver haired and handsome. “I am pleased to finally meet you. Lord Varys spoke highly of your kindness and many virtues.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Sansa said, lowering herself to her knees.

It was what would-be kings wanted.

Aegon didn’t appreciate it. His dragon reared his head, neck twisting in through the door. “Rise, my lady,” he commanded, a tad impatiently.

Sansa obeyed.

Robin who knelt next to Sansa did the same, without waiting for the prince’s order. “Your Grace,” he announced gravely, “There has been a grave misunderstanding. The Lady Sansa is my dearest cousin and guest. Not my prisoner. The entire Vale defended her from the troops sent by Cersei Lannister who wanted to take her captive. There are many witnesses.”

“The loyalty of the Vale remains to be seen,” Aegon said coldly. “I wish to speak to the Lady Sansa alone to establish where it lies. Lord Varys has particularly cautioned me against… Lord Petyr Baelish. Where is he?”

“Dead,” Robin said and _smiled_ , making a grave mistake, looking lordly about it.

“Did you have him killed?” Aegon inquired coldly. “Then you are more dangerous than I thought.”

The dragon breathed fire, devouring lazily one of the armrests of the High Seat of the Arryns. Robin’s eyes watered slightly at the destruction of the chair of his forefathers. To his credit, he managed not to cry.

Sansa straightened her spine. “I shall speak to you in private, Your Grace, if you swear on your honour to _leave_ after we are done talking. Without burning anything else. If you do not agree to these terms, I won’t speak to you at all. I’m not afraid of burning.”

Her tummy froze with fear as soon as her words echoed in the windswept hall of the Arryns. She spoke out of turn again and she would be punished for her insolence.

Surprisingly, Aegon gazed at her with newfound interest. “I think I understand Varys better now. Should you agree to speak to me in private, I cannot promise that I will leave, but I promise not to burn this castle nor your cousin nor you unless you oppose me in military terms. Is this acceptable?”

Sansa couldn’t believe her partial success.

“You want burn _anyone_ ,” she underlined.

“No,” Aegon clarified.

Sansa nodded, unable to answer. Her courage always reached its end after her outbursts. She fought the weakness in her body that wished to faint and skip the occasion of taming dragons.

She wondered where Sandor stood and if his heart thumped as hers.

_How do you feel about all the burning?_

She did not dare let her gaze run after him since they entered the Great Hall, which slowly emptied now, leaving Sansa alone with…

Aegon.

 _Prince_ Aegon.

He was better looking than the Knight of Flowers and seemed far more gallant and very well educated. Yet Sansa found him as exciting as Sweetrobin. The thought of having to marry him filled her with revulsion.

Her man was different; large and strong. He spoke rudely, but he also sensed her needs and moods, adjusting to them.

And this Aegon probably didn’t see Sansa, only Lady Stark. Sansa wondered if being more handsome made him more evil than Joffrey.

“Do you know who Jon Snow is?” Aegon asked brusquely when they were alone. “Varys said you should.

Sansa was shocked. “He’s my brother,” she said. “My half-brother,” she corrected herself. “Maybe there are more natural children of the North with the same name, but the only one I know is my brother. Why are you asking?”

“My aunt, Princess Daenerys, she went searching for him because in a _vision_ she had he was the third head of the dragon. Where is he? Is he ambitious?” Aegon was very nervous.

“I wouldn’t call Jon ambitious,” Sansa answered truthfully. “Eager for glory, maybe, wishing to do great deeds in some noble battle. And he should be on the Wall. He took the black. The men of the Night’s Watch cannot become high lords. Just defend the Wall.”

“Thank you,” Aegon said, looking handsome, vulnerable and truly grateful for her confused explanations.

Sansa felt guilty for thinking of him as heartless.

“You wouldn’t…” Aegon appeared uncertain. “You wouldn’t _fly_ north with me to help me find your half-brother and with him my aunt?”

“It depends,” Sansa said truthfully.

“On what, my lady?” Aegon asked. “Name your terms.”

“My freedom,” Sansa retorted readily.

“According to your own words, you’re not imprisoned,” Aegon observed. “What kind of freedom are you asking for?”

“Varys proposed I should marry you,” Sansa said flatly. “My answer is no. I no longer wish to be the queen. I only wish to go home. North. If you agree to this, I’ll fly with you to the Wall and help you talk to Jon,” She omitted saying that maybe her brother wouldn’t talk to her. They were never as close as Arya and Jon. “If I may take with me at least one guard of my choosing or, if your dragon can carry that many, also my cousin and a couple of men and women from his household.”

“You will _help_ me even if _I_ don’t agree to marry you first?”Aegon asked with disbelief.

“I don’t want to marry _you,_ ” Sansa reacted. “What part of it didn’t you understand? And I will help you in all I can if you respect my wish.”

“Very well,” Aegon said, looking relieved. “Be ready to leave on the morrow. I shall come for you in the evening. You can take your cousin and up to six other men.”

“Or women,” Sansa added cautiously, testing the limits of her newfound power.

“Or women,” the prince agreed. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Lady Sansa. Just like you, I am not eager to marry. We seem to have that in common.”

With that, Aegon walked to the Moon Door and climbed on his dragon’s neck, not minding the whirlwind of iced rain and soft snow. “Until tomorrow,” he greeted Sansa and disappeared.

Wind stormed the empty, grey hall of the Arryns. Sansa hugged a pillar, suddenly afraid that she might be blown away and end like her Aunt Lysa.

“Robin!” she called weakly. “Someone come in and close the door, _please._ I can’t.”

She expected Sandor to do it, but he didn’t. Lothor and Mya did.

_I should take them with me. And the cold-eyed Crakehall who was true to his traitorous word. Few men are._

_And Sandor first and foremost of all._

“Where is he?” she asked Sweetrobin. She didn’t have to say who.

“He said he had to sleep,” Robin said. “He left as soon as you agreed to speak to the prince in private. He told me he’d take the chamber in another tower, the one overlooking Alyssa’s Tears, not mine anymore. Before leaving, he ordered Lord Crakehall to guard me again tonight. Or he would kill him the next day, sure as sunrise.”

“Will you go visit the North with me?” Sansa asked as if in a dream. “Tomorrow? With this Aegon and his dragon.”

“Yes,” Robin beamed. “Thank you, Sansa. Vale is my home, but Father always intended to foster me for a year before I came of age. Winterfell will be as good as Dragonstone.”

“I don’t know if we can go to Winterfell,” Sansa said sadly. The Boltons had it, according to Petyr, may he rest in pieces. “But I will pray that we might.”

“I am taking _him_ as well,” she continued, “I’ll go and tell him.”

“Will you not join me for supper first?” Robin stopped her. “He asked for food to be brought to him.”

“Did he ask for wine?” Sansa asked, hearing her stomach sing. She would have to eat.

Robert shook his head.

“I may eat with him if you don’t mind,” she didn’t wait for her cousin’s answer. “Always stay in sight of your boarish Winged Knight, sweet cousin!” she counseled him and scurried to the tower where Sandor chose to dwell.

She found him as angry as she thought he would be.

“So when is the wedding?” he asked darkly. “Or will there be only the bedding? You must have promised the prince something when he left so eagerly. Did you want jewels? A precious cloak?”

The ugliness of his words could not touch her. She was happy. Free. Or almost. More free than she had been in a long, long time.

“I don't have to marry Aegon,” she told him victoriously. “Not now, not e _ver_. I was successful in calling it off. Do you know what it means? I’m free! And I’m going home; tomorrow night, on dragonback. I’m taking you and Robin with me.”

Her chest heaved and she hadn't been happier since her parents told her she would be Joffrey's queen.

Sandor gave her a defeated look.

“Isn't it wonderful?” she pressed Sandor on. It was what _he_ wanted. That she wouldn't marry the prince. ”We don’t have to leave and suffer in the wild. We stand a better chance of finding hospitality in the North in winter than in the Mountains of the Moon."

"If you say so," he said darkly, embracing her. "What's a dog to do but follow?"

His sadness touched her.

"Dog?" she asked with extreme softness in her voice, sorrowful in return. "Sandor? Have I ever called you that? I long to be with you in every moment of every day of my life. Can you not see that?"

His armour was piled up on the floor; his hair was brushed over his scars. His sword was at hand, under the table where he sat. The food served for him was untouched. There was no wine, only water.

She remembered his body pressing into hers in the Gates of the Moon before he went to fight Gregor; there was a wall behind her back and his weight was on her; warm and pleasing. The recent memory grew in power, shadowing her old ones of fear, revulsion and rejection of a man’s touch when it involved being pinned under him.

It was now or never. She could let her past rule her or she could leave it behind. She stared at Sandor, as he was now, angry and sad, but not threatening.

Slowly, she purposefully relaxed her body, every single muscle in it, and laid on her back on a modest featherbed. Not lordly, but theirs.

It snowed outside so they couldn’t see the waterfall.

Yet it was still daytime despite the winter storm. She would see every portion of Sandor. She looked forward to it. Most importantly, she would see his eyes.

“Come here,” she called him.

He was perplexed and reluctant to heed her invitation, recalling how she always rejected being on her back. His hesitation strengthened her change of heart. The past didn’t matter, couldn’t shame her. The unwanted touches, the kisses, the beatings, what were they? They had no meaning. Being forced could not soil her or change her. She could be killed and hurt but not truly spoiled or ruined. The latter was only a belief, taught to highborn girls to make them stay innocent until their marriage and birth only trueborn heirs.

“Like that?” he even asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “I think so,” she smiled hesitantly, losing some of her resolve.

“Please, no…” Her courage faltered when she wanted to ask him to undress. He stopped, wanted to turn back.

“No, don’t go. I didn’t mean that. What I meant was...” she failed in clarifying. Angry with herself, she sat up and began to fumble with the laces of her gown.

He helped her undress without hesitation. And when she pushed her hands under his tunic, he made himself naked immediately.

He covered her with himself and the heat was incredible. She kept her eyes wide open, directed at the planes of his upper body, hard and yet soft-skinned under the silky black hairs, so unlike the roughness of his palms and face.

She strove hard not to turn her gaze inwardly and remember the unwanted attentions she had been subject to, from others, and worse, from him; from the man she was destined to love.

Avoiding his lips, she kissed his chest, his shoulders, the crook of her neck, firmly, avidly. The grip of her lips came close to a bite when she tasted him, making him grunt hoarsely with surprise; the sounds he made called her attention even more to him and away from anything else.

They were alone in this room and in an entire tower of the Eyrie from what Sansa had seen when arriving. They could scream if they wanted and no one would hear.

No one would disturb them.

Some time and many caresses later, he was too heavy, laying over her and biting one of her ears. Sansa sighed, dismayed. She had to smack him on his back to gain some air. When she did that on previous occasions, she wanted them to please _stop,_ but now she only needed to make him lean more on his elbows and less on her.

He naturally took her weak blows as a sign he should end it and separated himself too far. The upper part of his body loomed over her, his gaze circling her, searching for signs of what she intended.

The past would catch up with her if he didn’t come closer again. She would remember the men she hated and she might reject Sandor; she would be crippled forever.

She would have none of it now, becoming angry at herself. If she could not go beyond this, it would mean that Joffrey and Petyr had won and that Sandor’s hateful behaviour had always been the right one. She wouldn’t allow that, not in her right mind, though one day some evil, strong man might vanquish her and break her body. She could not change the world.

“No, no, no, no,” Sansa protested vehemently at being left alone, searching for words to explain to him and finally finding them in her distress. “Come back here,” she said, “just don’t choke me.”

“Right,” he said, relaxing, understanding. “But then, I-”

“What?” she barely managed to ask.

Sandor kissed her wildly. She would not be able to avoid his lips this time even if she wanted it.

She needed his kisses now.

His weight was not on her anymore, but his manhood was, pushy and yet desirable. She hadn’t noticed it before, when she was at war with herself.

She searched for it with her woman’s place, realising how soft and aching she had become between her legs, wondering when it happened. She hadn't been paying any attention to the sensations in her body, only to tasting his and to her conflicting wishes.

When she found him, he sank _deep_ , taking her by complete surprise, making her gasp from sudden pleasure. Where was the pain? Had there ever been any pain? He pulled out and pushed back in.

_So it’s easier this way._

She would melt like the waterfall, before spring, she would thaw for him.

She might sing for him.

“It’s good for you now,” he stated, completely incredulous, halting. “Am I not… heavy anymore?"

"You are," Sansa said dreamily, wanting the heaviness, the sadness, the dark, needing it to breathe. “But not too much.”

He pushed back in, past her defences and her need to have control over her body and any potentially life-threatening situation she found herself in; beyond her wish to be able to let go of her inhibitions with _him,_ and the feeling of insufficiency because she couldn't or not completely.

Sansa gave herself to the momentaneous, to the fleeting, to the present, pulling Sandor towards her, feeling his weight on her and loving every ounce of it. No old memory came to mind, it was only them, only now; they had no past and no future.

Her pleasure came slowly to her and it lingered, less intense that the bright moments of joy she had succeeded in capturing for herself in their previous couplings. Before, she had to _stop_ herself every time when she was overwhelmed, stop _them_ from taking this any further because it would have been too much to bear for her if she went on.

Not being able to lay on her back until now was one part of her troubles in bed, the second part was holding back, but she only realised it now.

She didn't stop herself now. She didn’t have to. She was alright.

Not experiencing the need to collect herself, not having to fight her fears at all for they were… non-existent... felt like sheer and unexpected victory.

Her pleasure had no peak, rising and falling in waves. But it was much more thorough and fulfilling, bringing solid sweetness to her soul.

“Want me to finish?” Sandor asked, kissing her ear after speaking.

“No,” she captured his lips and licked them as an afterthought. “Why?”

_Wait. No pain. Are you like me in this?_

“Are you holding yourself back?” she asked, rocking her hips forward to catch that wave of warmth, on the rise again.

“No and yes,” he shot back, barely able to speak after her move to meet him.

“How?” she couldn't understand how both could be done at the same time.

“If I don’t hold back some, I’ll spill myself. Now. Or hurt you badly. Or knock you up. Or all of it,” he squeezed out one short sentence at the time, with his face hidden in her hair.

_Knock me up?_

Their baby would be a bastard. _No,_ Sansa corrected herself, _a_ _natural son or a daughter._

_Would it hurt terribly if he wasn’t stopping himself a bit?_

“Sandor,” she tapped his huge back until he heard her, “don’t hold back,” she asked of him, “I want to see how it is if you… if you _love_ me freely…” the other word was too ugly, she could never use it… “I wish to know if I can accept it,” she clarified, blushing furiously, “or if I’m fooling myself that I can because I love you… but...” it wasn’t all yet, “don’t end it,” she managed to shape her wishes fully, her voice a shameful whisper, “not yet.”

The time for kisses was over.

Sandor transferred most of his weight on his arms now. His head and chest were upright, high above her, sweaty and emanating warmth… He was doing it now… the way he fought. Powerfully. Spying for her reaction after every two strokes. Still half in control.

She had to stare at him at first with her eyes very wide, forgetting to meet him halfway, setting aside her needs and the budding novelty of sensations _this_ brought, admiring the sight of him.

He was wonderful.

_Brave and gentle and strong._

But, very soon, Sansa had to think of herself as well because what he was doing to her now couldn’t be ignored.

It didn’t hurt, thankfully, though it would have, she was certain, if he had _begun_ that way.

She didn’t think she could have her pleasure like this, but the sensation was incredible. She felt torn apart and put back together with every stroke, enraptured by this, taking part in this, being there for him and for herself.

“Still good?” he asked in utter disbelief from above and she knew that he knew.

It was.

“It’s incredible,” she voiced it nonetheless, so that he wouldn’t be able to think anything less of it or of himself.

Her answer made him lose or rather, _relinquish_ control. His face twisted in a grimace which had nothing to do with pain. His eyes darkened and closed. The pace of their loving increased further. Sansa grasped his arms, hard and hot like iron, and felt her thighs beginning to shake uncontrollably. Would she be able to walk at all? She felt the familiar ache in her woman’s place mounting, the wave on the rise again. She lifted her head and looked at him down there, entering her, stared at her woman’s place like that, not understanding the urge and even less why seeing this added to her growing contentment. She had to lift her hips and meet him once more, not knowing how she had strength left to do this, but all her muscles tightened and obeyed her more than willingly. _Again. And again._ The sensitive outer parts of her woman’s place rubbed against him. Pleasure spilled over her and with it the terrible, hateful need to stop him, stop them because it was too much to bear… before terrible memories would come and ruin it all...

“Fuck,” Sandor cursed abruptly, drawing all her attention back to himself.

She looked into his loving eyes and was hit by her pleasure. Overtaken. Lost. It felt like… like dying might. After, blessed warmth remained.

He collapsed on her, almost choking her. She had to turn her face on the side to catch some breath under one of his arms. His weight was entirely too much now though not unwelcome. After a short while, Sandor rolled to the side, pulled her to his chest and covered her head with kisses.

“You’re incredible,” he murmured.

He began cleaning himself and dressing with practice and speed she detested because it meant he had done it before. Before Sansa.

She lacked the strength and will to consider taking care of herself.

Surprisingly, when he was done, he began to clean _her_ … in a singularly clumsy fashion.

The first time they loved each other in the Eyrie, Sandor had wiped his seed from her hand and belly with the same ease he used for himself, but this was entirely different.

His seed was dripping out of her and some of it would never come out, she knew.

She could be… _with child_ , she realised. _Knocked up,_ as he’d said.

That first time she was fortunate to  see her moonblood in the same night, being close to the end of her cycle, but now she was at the beginning. Anything was possible.

She had broad hips like her mother. She wouldn’t die in childbed. Or not likely.

It would be _their_ child.

Sandor showed extreme ineptitude and slowness in deciding that the edge of a silky sheet was good enough to wipe her woman’s place thoroughly clean. Then he put her smallclothes back and even _tied_ them.

He was worse than Arya with her stitches... or Sansa when they forced her to have her first riding lessons.

She could have done it herself very rapidly. She didn’t. She let him do, experiencing a unique, terrible, tremendous satisfaction.

He located her shift, pulled it over her head, helped her find sleeves.

“Good like that?” he mumbled, his rasp never as deep as it normally was. If she didn’t know better, she would say that he was… flushed. “You won’t freeze when I fall asleep? It’s bloody cold tonight.”

She felt for her laces, firmly in place, took his hands, kissed them, nodded. “I’m better than ever,” she said and meant much more than her undergarments.

He murmured something unintelligible, embracing her and covering them both. She heard clearly a raspy, “-love you so bloody much, Sansa,” in the end.

“I love you with all my heart,” she said happily under the sheets to his probably sleeping, hulking form.

Sansa didn’t think, no, she was _certain_ that Sandor had never bothered to help any other lady clean _there_ or dress, _after_.

She decided she didn’t care about his past as long as he treated her like he did now, and she knew beyond doubt that parts of it were more terrible than her own.

It was best to leave it behind, just like she wanted to set aside the burden of her own unwanted experiences and be at ease in her body. Start anew. Do better, if she could, now that she was cleverer.

But this unexpected moment of Sandor’s innocence… or reverence… or both… was very lovable. She wished he would always tie her laces from now on.

xxxx

xxxx

A few minutes later, when Sansa was almost asleep, she heard quiet sobbing in front of her door.

She tried to wake Sandor, but she couldn’t. He slept like a log. So she wrapped her cloak around her shift and walked to the door, listening.

It was Sweetrobin.

He cried inconsolably now, scratching the door like a dog.

She opened it.

Robin backed off to the wall behind him, still crying, not lifting his eyes towards her.

"I should have seen it," he said through his tears. "I was stupid. I've brought you together."

He wasn’t petulant. He was desperate. Almost a young man and not a boy anymore. Hurting. Suffering from a broken heart. _When did this happen? Why didn’t I see it in time? How long have you been here? How much have you heard?_

She suppressed her fear for herself, always foremost in her mind since she was left to survive on her own, and gave her cousin her honesty.

"I think we came together on our own, because we wanted to," Sansa stated truthfully. "But yes, you have helped us both and earned our eternal friendship, loyalty and gratitude."

"I thought you both loved me!" Robin yelled with pain.

"And we do-" Sansa tried to say. It wasn’t a lie-

"But not the way I wanted _you_ to, either of you!" Robin howled shrilly. "I know I have no right to you, being a disabled _boy_ ,” he hissed dryly. “I _know_ that the Hound loves you. Who wouldn't? You are so pretty, Sansa… And you tell stories and try to help… Even when you don’t know how. But it still hurts terribly… to know that you return his love and not mine."

“I…” he stuttered, “I couldn’t fall asleep in my room so I came here. Heard him whisper that he loved you, heard your answer… I’m sorry for disturbing you. I should have gone back in silence as I arrived. Good night, cousin,” Sweetrobin peeped weakly and scampered down the corridor and towards the stair, going back to his lonely, lordly room.

Sansa made a step to go after him, to explain to him that the sisterly love she felt for him was no less true, but two huge hands clamped her shoulders, staying her in place.

"Let him go," Sandor rasped into her ear. "Anything you say will only make it worse. You're not his woman. I'm not his father."

"How do you know? We have to do something! He may _die_ shaking if we don’t," she protested.

Stunned by her lover's unforgiving, indifferent face, Sansa’s anger abated.

Of course he knew how Sweetrobin felt.

Sansa's benevolent, dispassionate, young girl’s interest in Sandor in the capital had been his undoing; it made him suffer and it made him rage. _Knowing_ he had no right to be angry didn't help. Not when he began loving her…

"I am yours now," Sansa told him with unhidden emotion. “I love you so much that it sometimes scares me.”

“I can’t believe it at times,” Sandor blurted, his gaze becoming vivid again. “Though I _know_ you’re not lying. I knew you didn’t look at the prince as you look at me now from the beginning. I saw it. And yet… You saw me. If I don’t stop doubting you, I’ll drive myself mad and scare you away.”

He opened his big mouth to say some more, only to be silenced by her kiss, wolfish and loud.

"You won’t,” Sansa stated with her father’s bluntness. “And Robin will live and he’ll grow," she added stubbornly, refusing to believe that there was no cure for her cousin's pain. "He hasn’t had sweetsleep in days. He has to be fine."

Sandor was right, she couldn't help her cousin _now._

But the impossible of today didn't say anything about tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> The deaf and mute author loves you.
> 
> And though the purpose of this story had never been specifically to entertain, I'm happy to hear that it's in the end entertaining :-))


	21. Twenty-one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks Topshelfcrazy.

“The Hound’s face was hard to read. He took a long moment to consider. ‘Why not? I have no lands nor wife to forsake and who’d care if I did?’ The burned side of his mouth twisted. ‘But I warn you, I’ll say no knight’s vows.’” Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF (when they give him the white cloak of the Kingsguard).

**Twenty-one**

Gregor was dead.

But the world was the same today as before his brother left it; lying and awful.

Gregor was dead and Sandor was still himself; disfigured and born a Clegane.

The second son of a minor house.

The mirror didn't lie.

The world would always see him as he was; his face, his origin, his past, his ardent service to the Stranger and to the lions. Justice couldn’t turn back time. Nor give him a new name.

Or  _ lands,  _ the thought was treacherous and sudden.

He saw himself a high lord, receiving petitioners, with Sansa by his side; his pretty wife in yellow silk. 

_ Right. _

He laughed at his own idiocy. His chuckling always sounded like a bark.

A dog was a dog, he had no trouble with that.

He lived as he could, he wouldn’t regret it now. On most days, he was who he was, and he went on from there, not minding himself. But there were other days, when he knew in his guts that he’d been a victim of a much bigger injustice than that suffered by other men at the age of six. Then, he would rage and he would bite until he managed to shut up.

Yes, he had suffered.

_ And? _

He wasn’t the only one and he lived as he could. 

(And sometimes, as he felt he ought to. But not often enough.)

His fist flew in the direction of the bloody mirror-

“Sandor,” Sansa murmured with somnolence, saving the looking glass from his mounting anger.

He sauntered back to bed in nothing but his breeches. His angry eyes found Sansa in a thin white shift; tousled and lovely. Her waking gaze roamed over his entire body. Not so long ago he would have snarled at her, demanding that she looked him in the eye.

Now, he grinned, stripping fully, carelessly and purposefully, showing her his buttocks first and his deflated cock next. The widening of her irises and the colouring of her cheeks was a priceless treat. She continued taking a good, long look at him, following the contours of his body in line with her wishes, not his; avoiding his cock. He fancied he could feel her eyes on his exposed skin and walked slower than usual, instead of bridging the distance between them in two giant, unceremonious leaps.

He didn’t fuck her bloody, but  _ well _ last night. Or she him, towards the end, he quipped inwardly. He didn’t think this was something she wanted to hear so he kept his wit for himself. What they did was incredible. He remembered a moment of fear he suffered, that for the first time in his life he’d be too tired to continue for as long as she would let him… 

_ No. _

As long as she wanted him to.

Sansa was much younger than him…

Sandor never felt old. He only looked old and was used to that. But he knew very well that aging men began losing to younger opponents in the yard and women married to grandfathers like Lysa Arryn often found lovers... This had sometimes worked to the dog’s advantage in the past.

His fear of weariness in bed with Sansa was unfounded. As always, he was just terribly sleepy after.

And it was still unbelievable that she  _ wanted _ him, that it wasn’t a concession in payment for his protection. The most he allowed himself to hope for at court was that she would let him have her one day because he’d be there for her. Not that she would have her own longings concerning his person.

He wondered if it was alright now to have her on her back whenever he wanted or if a new day meant a different order of business.

Women were fickle. They changed their mind.

And he… His thoughts swirled so often around bedding Sansa and yet, very strangely, he wasn’t in a mood for it now. Not at all. He didn't even want to undress her. His huge head was full of  _ fickle  _ thoughts and he was content with being around her. 

At ease with her.

The morning was silvery grey in the Eyrie. The bright winter sun was gone, left in the past with Sandor’s hidden wishes to have a wife and lands.

And not just any wife.

_ Sansa. _

“I’m going home today,” Sansa announced with such eagerness to leave the Vale that it hurt him. “And you'll go with me,” she added expansively. “You’ll love it.”

He didn’t think he would. He liked it well enough in the Eyrie where the illusion of having Sansa to himself was almost complete. _Not_ _an_ _illusion_. _She_ _is_ _mine._

_ But only for a time.  _

_ She'll have to marry some day even if she doesn't want to. _

Sandor would never forget the falcon's nest.

Was that why he wanted them to stay in the Vale? Not because it was sensible to avoid hardships of lonely travel by road in winter, dangerous even for a man like him, but because  _ he  _ feared the change?

Was he being  _ craven _ again?

“I was younger than you when I left mine,” he said quietly.

Sansa was all ears. “Why did you leave?” she asked quietly.

"There isn't much to tell," he began, sitting up in bed, turning his back on her.

And ended up spilling everything about his father’s death and Gregor’s role in it as she lay behind him; attentive and silent.  _ A hunting accident. _ Had Sandor killed even his own mother, he would have probably confessed it to Sansa. She had a way of making him say things. What he never intended to tell anyone.

He omitted the mention of his sister. Her  _ accident _ occurred some years before Sandor left home, and it couldn’t be treated with ointments; only with six feet of cold ground above her little body.

One day, he would tell Sansa about her, but today he could not. That loss was buried too deep.

Today he needed to break things.

_ Kill. _

_ No. _

It was worse than that.

Today he coveted lands.

The West was less far from the Eyrie than Winterfell and it would be beautiful in spring.

_ The winter will pass and then... _

Sandor could bend his knee to a new Lannister lord, in Gregor’s place, and claim his family lands for himself.  _ Gregor  _ had perhaps been the only  _ ser  _ in the realm who was always respectfully referred to as  _ lord _ bannerman to Tywin Lannister.  _ Ser  _ Gregor’s respectability and lordliness grew with every new atrocity.

Sandor could try taking his place if there were any Lannisters left, and if they wanted back their surviving dog.

But the dragons returned. They would have little love for the stag and the lion. They wouldn’t forget the death of their own...

Maybe his grandfather’s keep and lands had already been scorched, together with Gregor’s pets-at-arms and the smallfolk who had the misfortune to survive him.

He would… he  _ should _ ask the Targaryen boy, if he was crowned king, to confirm that the Clegane lands were his, praying that the boy could tell the difference between his mother’s butcher and the man who killed him.

His anger simmered. There was no king present to ask for favours, nor any man he could hit or murder without regrets.

He would have gone to the training ground and bruised a man in sparring, but he was far too late for that. Judging by the luminous greyness of the morning he and Sansa had overslept most of it. It must almost be time for midday meal.

Sansa suddenly hugged him from behind. He felt her tits through her shift against his bare back.

Her pretty hands grasped his chest, her chin leaned on his shoulder, her cheek on his cheek. He was secured and kept in place by Sansa.

Anger began leaving him.

“Any pretty words for my father?” He mocked her, but very lightly. “You always think of something appropriate to say.”

“He shouldn’t have said that your bedding caught fire,” Sansa declared with that air of superior composure and melancholy she used for judging the worth of men, impeccably and innocently, pronouncing truths that could make her lose her head if their recipient was a vain, cruel boy like Joffrey.

“No, he shouldn’t have,” Sandor’s mouth twisted in a grin, amazed that she even remembered his father's lie. He had mentioned it to her that bloody night in the empty field after the Hand’s Tourney.

Sansa began to kiss his shoulders. This was very innocent and his back wasn't a very sensitive part of him. But the little bird’s  _ ease _ with the gesture and the knowledge it was her and not a wet dream of his made it exquisitely satisfying.

His head swam with happiness.

“It is time for midday meal, you know,” he observed timidly, feeling it was fair to inform her.

“Is it?” The news upset her.

Just as he thought it would.  _ Courteous, silly bird. _

“We should have-”

“Yes, been up for a while and broken fast with the little lord even if he hates us today. But we didn’t. We slept.”

She began fretting with her shift, dressing up. He followed; resigned to a new day and duties. Every kennel came at a price. Be it in a sept or in a bloody castle.

He told himself that he hadn't been in a mood for it anyway. Only his concern about his and Sansa’s future remained; treacherous and vivid.

_ Craven. _

Lost between illusion and reality.

They found the castle almost as empty as on the day when Sandor had climbed to it on the winch chain, looking for Sansa.

The midday meal was served only for the two of them. There were a few servants and some guards left in the Eyrie. But the men of the Vale were gone, back to the Gates of the Moon, for there was no place else they could go.

Further up the Giant's Lance there were only clouds.

There was no note, no explanation from the little lord left with anyone.

Sansa turned soup over her plate, spilling a drop on her gown and wiping it meticulously with a silky, light-blue napkin.

Sandor could watch her eat for hours.

This was very well because it nearly took her that long to finish her meal.

“Well,” Sansa murmured, leaving the fork and knife in perfect position on her plate. “I suppose Aegon will come at the end of the day as he promised if he truly needs my help.” She looked very uncertain about it all of a sudden.

Afterwards, they returned to their room for not having anything better to do, with bellies full of food and heads restless from nerves.

It was as if their legs took them back to bed with a will of their own. Besides, it was too cold to linger outside or even in the hall where they dined in solitude; spacious and drafty. It would have been warmer with more guests at the table, but there were none…

Somehow, they sat on their bed and Sansa embraced him from behind once more. Her tiny, lovely hands ended up stroking his clad chest.

Instinctively, he turned his head back towards her on his good side, sparing her the sight of the other half by the supreme force of deeply entrenched habit to be as businesslike with women as possible. He remembered too late that he didn't have to think of that with Sansa. She saw him now; all of him, not minding his scars. Just like he always wanted. Revelling in the knowledge, he turned back fully and kissed her. When she sighed into his mouth, there was only one thing he could think of, and hopefully so did she...

Revisiting the discoveries from the night before came so naturally to him, step by step. That he could lay her on her back. That he could loom over her, showing himself, not hiding his face in her neck nor in the pillows. That his weight on her was welcome if he left her some space for breathing. That he could impose his rhythm and that she would follow, surprising him at occasions with a change or an addition of her own. That he could cover her with his body without her showing fear. That there wasn't any reticence between them, neither on his nor on her side...

That he could…

Lose himself at will, not regretting it.

She was very quiet when he cleaned her stomach and was about to help her dress. She liked it before.

Now, her curious, alert gaze lingered on him and she didn't look spent at all.

"You wanted more," he stated, filled with dread at his own insufficiency. What could a man with no lands and an ill name give his woman if he failed in this?

"I don't know," she said, sounding painfully honest and confused. "I mean, I don't think I could have continued much longer."

His dread deepened.

_ Did I hurt you? _

"Why didn't you tell if there was pain?" he asked, sobering up from the blessedly numbing aftermath of his pleasure.

Did he not see? Was he lost in what he wanted? Could he have been oblivious to her pain? Her unease and fear had always held him back in the past, always… Why not now that she loved him? Did reassurance and  _ love _ make him more blind to her discomfort than anger ever did?

Was he blind like Father in his love for Gregor?

Cold dread coiled in his belly, judgmental and insistent.

It felt as if his sword arm betrayed him in battle.

"It didn't hurt. Or very little. Nowhere near as much as the first time," she began explaining sincerely, and then lowered her eyes, seemingly at complete loss how to describe further what she experienced, and yet wishing to say something more.

"I'm sorry," she finished lamely, looking nervous and unhappy. "It must be me. And… and my lady’s armour towards men who… who make me obey them. I… I obey. But I… I don't feel. I hide within. I guess it was easier for me if I was like this in situations I deplored. And I don't want to be like that with you now but it just  _ happens. _ It’s as if I expect to suffer and… close myself to it to hurt less… But I… I’m improving since I know that I love you. I wasn't indifferent or afraid of you. I  _ felt  _ a lot. And…. it  _ was _ good,” she sounded incredibly embarrassed from the admission. “It’s always been good with you… since you found me here. Just not as good as last night."

_ Not as good? _

He had trouble grasping the concept.

For him a fuck was good or it wasn't, and there was no way it wouldn't be good with Sansa.

It was too good to be true.

And after last night he thought it might become the same for her, that a fuck would always be as good for Sansa as it was for him.

He should have known that a proper lady would be different.

"I'm happy it was good for you," she said shyly. "It pleases me that I'm now able to lay on my back-"

He kissed her compulsively.

"What you want…" he muttered, "as you want it, remember?" he paused. "I've always wanted a song," he reminded her in a deep rasp. "I still do. A  _ song _ . Not what you think you ought to do for your love of me," he sounded more mocking than he intended to.

He hoped she didn't mind.

Sansa contemplated the gravity of his wishes.

"I see," she said, though he suspected she might not.

She had never been very vocal in bed, though it would be a lie to say she was silent. Every little sound she made was terrifyingly pretty. He suspected she found it unladylike to allow herself to make plenty of noise. His grunts were much louder.

He loved her more for that reluctance because it made her... Sansa… and not any other woman in existence.

Though he wished… he wished she would completely lose her composure at times; with him, and not with anyone else. And every time she lost some, she was so beautiful.

"Kiss me some more," she demanded, regaining her courage. "If you… if you don't need to sleep."

She'd noticed his habit of falling asleep after emptying his balls, didn't she? She had to have by now…

He would have fallen asleep if he wasn't thwarted in his desire to give her what he could. And that was pleasure.

_ No lands and no wife. _

"There's this thing women ask for," he stated between kisses with carelessness he didn't feel. "But you didn't think much of it."

She'd forbidden him to lick her cunt. In prettier words, obviously.

No woman had actually asked Sandor to do that, what with his face. It was simply what he heard in taverns. Men lied about it, just like they bragged that women begged them for a fuck. But if he loved a woman's mouth on his cock, then the opposite ought to be true as well. The bewildered reactions women had given the few times he drunkenly tried it vaguely confirmed this.

"Why would  _ you _ want to do  _ that _ ?" She wondered. "I am… I'm not clean now."

"Do you think washing matters for any of this?" He asked between kissing her teats. "You smell like a treat to me."

Sansa became deep purple and was unable to speak. Her mouth was slightly open.

He wondered if that was a tentative  _ yes  _ on her part, or simply a sign of profound shock.

"I thought about it once or twice since you tried it with me," she confessed.

_ Is that a yes? _

He could ask, but he found that he didn't want to hear a  _ no  _ from her mouth if that was what she meant. Best if she refused him in practical terms. It would be less of a blow to his newly found reassurance that she wanted him. It would make him less angry if she turned him down in deed than in word. Less prone to either chasing her away by profanities or leaving her in his rage.

So he set out to determine if she would allow or deny it, as attentive to Sansa as he would be to an opponent during battle.

He kissed her from her breasts down, marking a line over her belly, sucking on her belly button. Arriving to that thatch of soft, auburn hair, he looked up. His heart pounded like a drum on a galley; very fast, in attack speed.

Sanda stared at him without saying a word, without a move to either reject him or welcome him.

He spread her cunt with his fingers, not too much, only a little, and licked the softness in the middle.

The smell was incredible and he wanted to continue without controlling himself. Until he hardened again and was able to have her.

He nonetheless halted and looked up.

This wasn't about him.

Her eyes were locked on him and she seemed terribly focused on his presence between her legs, just as much as he was determined to be successful in this.

He licked her again and heard that little sigh she made so often when he kissed her mouth, and which he took for an encouragement to proceed.

He held her hips and licked her cunt freely, tasting her. Her legs tightened around his face, but she didn't push him away, though she probably could; his head wasn't as heavy as the rest of him. Her hands grasped his skull, but without hitting him helplessly, which would be another familiar sign of hers that he should stop. Her nails stayed out of his scalp.

He fed on her and heard another sigh, a longer one. Sansa was so wet and smelled so sweet that he compulsively thought of himself, hardening, and not of her.

_ Later. _

He put his tongue inside her. Whenever the squeeze of her hands and legs on his face lessened, he licked her firmly up and down, believing that he was doing fine whenever she did her best to choke him.

(She could never truly choke him. She wasn't that strong.)

One of his hands ended under her arse when her hips jerked forward. His finger skirted her back opening and travelled to the front one. Reaching her pretty little cunt, it slid in.

She gasped and almost cried now. He didn't know if that was very good or extremely poor on his part.

When he looked up, her eyes were unfocused, semi-closed, and her head hung to one side. Her teats were rising and falling in the restless rhythm of her breath.

So it was either that good or that bad, just as he thought.

Too craven to speak, fearing rejection, Sandor took a risk as he often did in battle.

He would be a good dog and let Sansa tie him to the bed after, if he got it wrong.

He used his tongue and his finger to explore her cunt without holding back or looking up to her face. He wondered if it would be alright to have her again now.

In a while, through the haze of his desire, he heard a very soft sound of her crying.

Stopped by her tears, he crawled up to face her. His cock softened, defeated. Hesitant and craven, he kissed her shoulders.

Finally finding his courage to face her, he whispered. "Should I say how sorry I am?"

(He never said that to anyone. Never. Why should he be sorry? The world should be  _ sorry  _ and it never was.)

No answer came.

"I’m so fucking sorry-”

"It was very good,” she interrupted with no regard for courtesy, needing to correct him. “Different than anything else," she stated in a deep voice, wiping a small tear, pulling him in for a proper kiss.

He would have to remember that Sansa always needed to be kissed after anything they did in bed. And despite being a lady, she didn’t seem to mind her own taste on his lips.

He realised how stiff  _ he _ was when her hands found his shoulders.

"You are… uptight," she judged, her voice still deep and fluttery. "I thought it was only me because of my past and because it’s so new to me… to love a man like this. To love you."

_ That _ was what he needed to hear, he realised.

"I was afraid that it might be terrible for you," he confessed his weakness. “I’m not… I’m not confident I can do that properly.”

“The ladies didn't ask you to, did they?” she asked with an emotion he couldn't place; a dark one.

He shook his head. “They didn't,” he said. “So I tried when I thought I could. Some women asked me for a fuck, but not very often. Mostly I paid for it.”

His confession earned him a hug and a kiss on top of his head, on the portion of his scalp where no hair grew. A rather…  _ sensitive  _ part, he discovered, not hard and leatherlike like the tissue of his scars.

“They didn't love you,” Sansa continued with her own outburst when she was done kissing him. “They didn't see you. It both pains me and pleases me that they didn't. I’m sad for you and happy for myself. Because I love you, and your stupid, unhappy past means that you can be mine.”

Suddenly, it was more womanly love that Sandor could bear, more than he asked for.

_ Too bloody much. _

"I'll get us some warm water," he said, needing some time apart.

_ Wife _ _ and lands. _

_ She doesn't want to marry, dog. _

But he didn't even ask her, so how could he be so certain that she wouldn't want to marry  _ him _ ?

_ Because you're still a dog alright. _

Before he could succumb to the omnipotent need to break and crush things, he got them some water, and then also some food from the kitchens, feeling ravenous hunger as soon as he was out in the cold.

They cleaned and had their supper in bed and she talked to him about Winterfell, confessed how mindless she was when she wanted to leave her home and how for long years all she truly wanted was to go back… She told him how Littlefinger promised her she would go home with an army if she agreed to marry Harry the Heir… And reiterated how  _ glad  _ she was for not having to marry, many times…

Any mad desire to ask Sansa to be his wife died in face of her fervent wish to go home and contentment about being free.

_ Your home isn't in the West, is it, Sansa? _

_ Would you wither like a winter rose if you went there with me? _

The West wasn't truly his home either. Just the only piece of land he might be able to claim if he was fortunate. And he probably wouldn't be.

When the day dwindled, Sandor and Sansa stood at the window of their room in one of the seven white towers of the Eyrie, fully dressed. He was armed and armoured. Quietly, they observed the waterfall; a rustling, crying sound.

_ Alyssa's Tears. _

Darkness came slowly to their world.

And with it, the terrible, cruel certainty.

They were still alone in the castle, apart for those few servants and guards.

Sansa’s prince didn't come for her as he promised.

Maybe Cersei killed him to remain queen. Maybe she stole his dragon and was now flying above Westeros conquering the Seven Kingdoms. Cersei was capable of anything, and she had waited so long to be queen…

“I guess," Sansa finally began admitting the truth, wringing her hands. "I guess that Aegon is no true knight. He didn't keep his word."

"It would seem so," Sandor agreed gently.

"They all left us!” Sansa complained heartily about the abandon of the Eyrie for the first time that day, forgetting her dignity. "How could they?"

“Perhaps we should have woken up at first light to see what the little lord was planning,” Sandor tried to say. 

Oversleeping _was_ rude in courtly terms.

Sansa embraced him and cried. “I know,” she drawled against his shoulder. “I just thought… I thought myself safe for once. Free from the necessity to show my utmost respect and blind obedience to anyone. And I… I dreaded to see my cousin after he found us last night. I never wanted to hurt him. And I... I needed to be with you. I didn't want anything else. It doesn’t matter, Sandor, it will pass. It just hurts so much to lose hope again.”

_ You only wanted to be with me? _

_ Why not then? _

_ Why not marry me, Sansa? _

_ The kingdoms are in ruin and who would care if a dog married a noble girl? _

“I know what this is, Sandor," she finished her outburst full of sorrow for herself. "I've known it all along. This must be the punishment of the gods for betraying my father.”

“I’ll never go home,” she wept.

Sandor wanted to contradict her, wanted to claim that she would, that he would take her there. That there were no gods and no punishment; no heavens and no hells.

His mouth remained shut. Stranger was dead. How was he going to take her home? Walking?

“We’ll go somewhere,” he affirmed. He was successful in that, he always went some place else. Every time the dog was forced to leave a kennel.

“Ten more times up and down from the Gates of the Moon to the Eyrie?” Sansa retorted unhappily. “Why not go and live as peasants in some village in the Vale?”

_ Because the villagers won’t have food for us or like my face any longer than the time it takes to build a palisade for them. _

“I am no knight, but you're a lady,” he offered carefully. “This is easy to see. When they are hungry and angry, the poor can be much more awful to their betters than the highborn to each other.” 

Sansa shivered, remembering. "The man with garlic on his breath…" she stuttered.

Sandor had cut off the bastard's arm in the riot when he tried to pull Sansa off her horse. He still remembered Sansa’s horrified face at the sight. It had probably stopped him from killing the gnat. His mercy had been a cruelty. Without a maester's attention, the loss of a limb meant certain death; slow and painful. He should have cut that man in two, but he couldn’t…

Sansa had been staring at him and he opted to climb on her horse and bring her back to the bloody castle, which she shouldn’t have  _ left _ in the first place-

His thoughts delved in the dark, into that place where he occasionally imagined that Sansa was  _ his  _ prisoner and not Joffrey's. He would treat her well.

But if he restrained her freedom in order to ensure her perfect safety, as a deeply buried part of him suggested he might do, she would be unhappy. Birds didn't belong in cages no matter how prettily they chirped.

Sansa’s slender frame shook and she began sobbing violently.

Soon it became clear that she wouldn’t stop.

The only time Sandor had seen her that devastated was when he came with Joffrey to her room, when she'd been crying for days after they killed her father.

That night Sandor held his weeping woman in his arms and pondered frantically what he  _ could  _ do.

At moments he wondered if the little lord was shaking and if anyone helped him.

_ He'll have to help himself. _

It was the only way.

The Stranger was gone when Sandor needed his help.

The gods departed.

Perhaps they were never in the Vale and he was a superstitious fool.

He nonetheless whispered to Sansa that everything would be alright; he repeated this wish of his until exhaustion, hoping it wasn't a lie.

_ It isn't _ , he told himself stubbornly.  _ It won't be. _

He could…

He would try to put on the face of the Maiden and the Mother, the Smith, the Warrior and the Crone.

He could be the Father.

Though he didn't know how.

He would raise his ugly mug for all to see and go on, like so many times before.

He would live as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Two to four chs to go. Will aim for two.
> 
> Happy holidays :-))


	22. Twenty-two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, TopShelfCrazy, for helping with clarity ))

“He don’t care and we’ve got no spade. Leave him for the wolves and wild dogs. Your brothers and mine.” Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF

**Twenty-two**

The sun shone differently when he was with Sansa.

Strong and pretty, it made the Giant’s Lance glow, in splendour of snow and ice.

The mule’s step was cautious, used to the treacherous stairs carved in stone on the long descent from the Eyrie.

Sansa’s spine was very straight, her riding posture perfect, balanced from all directions.

_ Admirable. _

She interrupted his studious glare by an insecure glance. “Should I be acting differently?” she wondered.

“You’re riding better than the girl I remember,” he explained himself.

“I still don’t like it,” she murmured, “it stinks.” She patted the mule affectionately after offending her, probably regretting her discourteous sentiment.

Sandor had chosen to walk.

Stranger was dead, and the mules didn’t look as if they could handle his weight.

In his mind, the Hound recalled his entire journey to the Eyrie.

_ Up and down. _

_ And up and down again... _

_ How many more times? _

He looked down the mountain, brooding.

When he inevitably returned his attention to Sansa, he caught her stealing a good long look at  _ him. _

All of him, his figure, ending up on his face.

Decidedly not seeing only his scars, like years ago, when she averted her eyes from an accidental encounter with the ruin of his cheek, longing to meet  _ Joff’s _ pretty gaze on the kingsroad…

Clearly seeing the scars as well, not pretending or imagining they weren't there...

She realised she was discovered and blushed, lowering her gaze.

It was unsettling to be the target of her blue stare in the vast whiteness of the mountain; in bright, stark sunlight.

It had been easier in enclosed, smaller spaces and candlelight; he’d felt less exposed.

Sansa looked at him, all of him…

He had gotten his greatest wish and still he longed for more.

He was her lover…

It was a wonder, and yet, and yet!

He wanted to be more; he yearned to be her husband… 

But he still had to find the courage to ask her.

For if she said no, how could he continue breathing?

And if she said yes... How could he shorten her wings by tying her to him?

She was very young, and he’d always be himself.

“What?” he barked angrily, giving voice to his restlessness. “You can tell me if there’s something wrong.”

“The descent is monotonous. And if I look down, I may be afraid,” Sansa sounded apologetic without excusing herself; sensitive to his changing mood, wishing to appease him, perhaps.

She’d probably be attentive to the whims of any other gnat she wanted to please, and who didn’t deserve her.

He shrugged, better off after his outburst. “It’s not you,” he rasped. “It’s me. It has always been me, I think.”

The anger was in him, stirred but not caused by the world.

She tilted her hooded head sideways, pondering his statement. “Yes,” she concluded, smiling brighter than the sun above. “It was you from the beginning. Isn’t that… magical?”

It was just like Sansa to see his infamous temper as something good for being related to  _ him _ … because… because she loved him...

Unfairly, he couldn’t see much of her figure to return the favour of measuring her up. 

She was wrapped from head to toe in a thick cloak, hiding her shape. Only the long waves of her hair were visible, and that disturbing blue gaze, wandering freely between him and the bloody mountain.

Stone and Snow were small black dots on the snowy slope below them.

Sky was left behind, under the eagle’s nest; deserted and frozen.

The sun melted the top layer of ice and snow drifts on the Giant's Lance. They’d make it to the Gates of the Moon in one day if the weather stayed good.

They didn’t discuss where they would go from there, or if anywhere at all... waiting to see what they would find…

If anything at all.

Sansa gripped harder the reins of her mule and staggered in saddle.

“What now?” the Hound asked warily, alert to her discomfort.

“Nothing,” she said weakly, redressing herself. “I’m weary from the past days I think. It was much more exertion than I’m used to. I wish I could sleep for a sennight.”

Sandor was as good as new.

Despite his bad leg, the strenuous climbing up and down from the Eyrie, a wound to his arm, falling ill in the Vale, and the effort of body and soul he had to muster for killing Gregor, he didn’t suffer from it. 

Not from any of it.

If anything, he was in a better shape than when he’d left the Quiet Isle, and strangely optimistic about his future.

It would include Sansa.

“You can sleep in the Gates of the Moon,” he encouraged her to go on, for he didn't trust the weather.

The Giant slept now, but he could always turn his Lance against travellers. 

“Chances are the little lord left orders that we are to be treated royally in his absence, just like he did in the Eyrie,” the Hound assumed.

“I’d rather be treated less royally than left all alone in the Vale,” Sansa complained.

_ Alone? What am I? _

“Sandor,” she said his name with incredible, stunning softness, taming the wild dog in him. “How could they all have  _ left _ ?”

“It’s not the little lord’s fault that the dragon prince didn’t return for you as he promised. Robin’s free to do as he pleases,” he rasped flatly.

“But what will he do? What if he’s doing something… imprudent and harmful?”

The Hound shrugged again. “Children don’t stay children forever. I know it, you know it. It’s his life, his choices. He’s got to do something.”

“Wouldn’t you be concerned if he were your son?”

_ My son. _

_ No wife and no lands… _

The truth was, the Hound already worried about Robert Arryn killing himself needlessly in some ravine in the Vale, or wherever he rode to with his pitiful bannermen on a quest for glory. Despite that the boy wasn’t his son nor his kin. He just wouldn’t discuss it.

Not even with Sansa.

A single grey cloud formed surreptitiously in the sky, enhancing the Hound’s reticence towards the bloody weather.

The Giant was waking.

“We should hurry,” he said decisively, avoiding the answer to Sansa’s question.

They made it to Snow under darkening, menacing sky.

But just before they reached Stone, the tempest came. Of ice, and snow, and sleet… The worst squall the Hound had ever seen.

“Beautiful,” Sansa whispered through the frozen rain that came last, becoming soaked and smelly like her mule.

The Hound wouldn't let her know the latter. She would feel unladylike, wouldn’t she? And it wasn't as if he minded the scent. If anything, it was delightful in a fashion, for being hers and so unlike her at the same time.

They had to spend the night in Stone, on a straw mat too small for the two of them, in a humble tower room near the fire. Guards were as helpful as in the Eyrie, obeying the little lord's orders. Yet there wasn't much they could provide; an empty room for the  _ lord and the lady _ , they said, some broth and some firewood.

Sansa’s and Sandor’s clothes dried near the fire as they warmed each other under a stinky blanket. It was a foretaste of travel that might lie before them if she decided they should leave the Vale; they would be poorly fed, wet, cold and weary.

_ Too tired for a fuck. _

He considered it, or his cock did, briefly.

But faced with Sansa dozing off on his shoulder after placing tiny, clumsy kisses on his neck, just where his scars ended, he became content to follow the same route. Giving himself to sleep, he didn’t even need to take care of himself.

The idle closeness and the fine satisfaction it brought was new and different.

He wished it would continue.

The morning after, they found the Gates of the Moon almost as empty as the Eyrie; left in the hands of a moderately sized garrison to defend it. The commander readily answered  _ Lady _ Sansa's questions.

Yes, Lord Arryn had ridden forth to battle with the best knights of the Vale.

No, no one knew where to.

It was a secret strategy revealed by the Seven to the little falcon.

Sansa looked sad as a dying flower.

“You want to leave,” the Hound grumbled.

“I want to go home,” she murmured, “see it again... See what it has become… If I can. If you were to choose, would you want to spend winter here?”

_ I’d spend the winter with you. _

_ And not only winter… _

"I’ll make a little tour to see what can be done," he grunted, and asked more questions of the commander, about the state of the roads and the mountain clans. Then he went to speak with the soldiers, one by one, all over the castle, hoping that Sansa was using the time to rest…

To Sandor's surprise, it didn't take much to convince them that the orders of their lord to extend every courtesy to his honoured guests, Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and Sandor Clegane, the  _ Winged Knight  _ who liberated the Vale from a monstrous foe, could be interpreted to include a feat of quite some magnitude. Before the day was done, half of the garrison agreed to accompany the Hound on a noble quest of bringing the Lady Sansa to her home in the North.

And at the end of the empty, snowy field where he killed Gregor, two men prepared to murder his brother’s horse gone wild.

"Here, friend," the thinner of the two diligent soldiers waved with an apple, putting it on the ground and standing aside, sword in hand. He and  _ his _ friend would attempt to cut the horse's legs if he went for the fruit.

The horse snorted, skittish, reticent, halting in place like a stubborn mule.

"You!" the Hound hollered to the would-be horseslayers. "Let me do this," he said.

He joined the party in several giant leaps, picking up the apple and holding it out to the black destrier.

The horse whined, studying the Hound, comparing him to Gregor, perhaps.

The two soldiers held their swords at ready.

"Don't," the Hound threatened them, "or you’ll share the fate of his late master.”

"But he’s been biting people's noses off!" The thin man complained.

_ Aye. He surely has. You’d do it as well if you were Gregor’s. _

"Let him try with mine," the Hound rasped calmly.

Gregor's horse readily snatched the apple, nearly grazing his hand.

"Good boy," the Hound said, grabbing the end of the reins. "Give me another apple will you?" he ordered the soldiers. "For the Winged Knight."

He held the reins firmly, but calmly, and the horse at some distance, until he got a new fruit. Feeding it to the animal, he was able to come closer without being bitten. 

_ For now. _

Never losing hold of the reins, he took his new horse to the stables and tied him in an empty stall.

"Don't touch him," he ordered the stable boys. "Just leave some food where he can reach it. I'll come for him myself when we ride out."

Chance was Gregor's horse hadn't eaten much lately, wandering in the frozen wood since his master's death. No wonder he’d like to bite someone's head off. Especially if it stood between him and food.

Sandor hurried back to Sansa.

“We're going North,” he announced to her immediately, proud of himself. 

“Thank you,” she said sincerely, but she also wrung her hands, as restless as he'd been on the mountain. She seemed truly happy about getting  _ her _ wish, but lacked the profuse, youthful enthusiasm the Hound had expected.

_ What more do you want? That I bring down the stars for you? _

"Could we leave now?" she asked timidly, after a while.

"Didn't you want to rest?" he inquired wildly. "What difference does it make?"

“All the difference,” she said fervently, without explaining herself further, pale like a white water lily.

Sandor longed for another night in bed with her, not in the saddle, nor in the wood.

A place where she would be comfortable, rested and desirous to take further what they started.

He nevertheless did as she wanted, just like she often tried to accommodate his moods.

They headed out after midday meal, exiting the Bloody Gate in the early afternoon.

The Mountains of the Moon were as desolate as he remembered them.

But not as empty…

The Burned Men attacked at nightfall.

It didn’t matter that the men left to Sandor weren’t knights. Their steel was shinier than the knives and clubs of the clan.

And Sandor wore gladly the face of the Stranger that evening, leading them.

No one could withstand him.

Had Sandor and Sansa been alone, it would have been different…

They would have been killed.

The certainty of that outcome had kept at bay his regrets over leaving her in King’s Landing in the past, on his solitary journey through the riverlands.

The unglorified end of his travel with her little sister proved him right… Even if he had avoided being wounded by Gregor's pets, by not drinking himself to death because of the news of Sansa’s marriage to the Imp, sooner or later, a man alone, or two people on the road, no matter how strong and capable, would have fallen victims to attack or calamity.

Sansa had obediently remained in saddle during the confrontation with the Burned Men, surrounded by four guards who didn't take part in the skirmish. 

_ Good girl. _

_ Good girl. _

_ My love. _

His heart took its time to slow down after successful bloodshed.

The company left the battleground and rode on. 

When they stopped to make camp, Sansa whispered to the dark, "I have to make water.”

She began dismounting hastily and her gaze lost all its brightness under the stars. Her foot was caught in a stirrup, and she slid off the horse, falling rapidly… 

Sandor was there to soften her fall, but her head still hit a rock on the ground, though not very hard…

Or so Sandor hoped...

She was hot to touch.

"You're ill!" he yelled. "Why didn’t you tell me?"

Sansa withdrew in silence, hiding behind a tree. Maybe she was too tired for chirping, or being offended by his awfulness. 

Or just busy pissing.

When she was done with that, her eyes were very big and very serious; their gaze almost grey instead of blue in starlight.

"Do you remember when Father had to kill Lady to please the queen?” she murmured melodiously while laying down on the pallet he’d prepared for her, eyes raking his face, as though she wanted to commit it to her memory.

The Hound nodded mutely. He had glimpsed Lord Stark dealing with the dead wolf when he was returning from the hunt of children with a dead boy.

_ Michael. _

_ Mycah. _

“Father sent Lady back to Winterfell, to be buried in the lichyard of the faithful servants of the House Stark, just like, years ago, he had brought home his only sister’s remains from the South... To lay her to rest in the crypts of our forefathers."

Having spoken, Sansa closed her eyes.

In the morning, she was feverish and non-responsive, in a peculiar state; neither awake, nor fully asleep. He gave her some water and she drank, he put crumbs of bread and cheese in her mouth and she swallowed.

She couldn't sit straight nor on her own, and much less ride a horse, and he hadn't thought of finding a  _ wheelhouse  _ in the Vale for the long trip North. He knew bloody well now that he should have done it… Cersei needed one and Sansa was a greater lady than her. How could he ever have thought that she could just  _ ride  _ to Winterfell like him?

So he took her in the saddle with him, and Gregor's horse carried them both westward, out of the Mountains of the Moon and towards the fords of the Trident.

Together they were as heavy as his brother.

Sansa lived on water and tiny morsels of solid food he dared push into her mouth when she accidentally opened it, always attentive to help if she began choking...

He soon realised he'd have to help her to make water and empty her bowels, and was successful in the unlikely endeavour… He kept her clean because it was what she would have wanted for herself.

One night, she peed like a little baby in her sleep…

So he changed her in the darkness when no one was watching, finding lady's smallclothes, clean shift and dress in her saddlebag, washing the dirty garments in snow and drying them near the fire… For next time.

He couldn’t go back. There was no maester in the Vale. There would probably be none in the riverlands, ravaged by the successive wars. He was on his own.

"The lady's just a little unwell," he told the other men. "She'll be better soon."

No one questioned his lead or his wisdom for three days and three nights, until they reached the fords.

Men found it it easier if someone thought for them.

Even if that someone was the Hound, now honoured as the Winged Knight of Lord Robert Arryn's guard…

He didn't care about the new name they gave him, only that it helped him achieve his goals. (The fear of his person when he guarded Cersei gave him a semblance of peace. People stared less and didn't dare show pity.)

_ It's different now. _

His presence and manners still scared and repulsed his soldiers, but he also received their gratitude for killing Gregor, expressed by friendly taps on his huge back and even brazen curiosity about how he’d executed this or that move. He could almost drink with some of them instead of alone.

If he could drink.

If he didn't have to mother Sansa.

At the fords, his men finally faced up to his dogged stubbornness.

“The lady needs help,” they claimed, and they were right.

“The lady also wants to go home,” he persisted.

He’d carry her north.

_ To her lichyard. To the crypts of her fathers. Like her wolf.  _

It was what she wanted, what she’d told him.

She must have sensed she was turning very ill… she’d made her last wish to him... without being very clear… not wanting to hurt him by the extreme discourtesy of… of dying…

_ Is that the way of it, Sansa? _

_ What about us? _

_ Us… _

_ It was too good to be true. _

_ Wasn't it, Sansa? _

Soon all he would have left would be memory.

He refused it.

Yet his men deserved the truth.

And the fords of the great river, imposing like the pain in his chest, demanded he decide on a direction. If he crossed, the long journey North would be unavoidable. If new rains fell, and they would, in winter, the fords could be flooded; the passage back south closed.

“She's dying,” the Hound admitted without further ado.

Whining would serve no purpose.

Sansa would die and there was nothing he could do.

In her state, she wouldn’t even  _ know  _ if she was taken back to Winterfell.

He wasn’t Lord Stark with his cold grey eyes. He was from the warm, inflammable south. It had never been his intention to carry north only her remains…

Like an empty-headed bugger from a pitiful song believing in noble lies, Sandor had set out a different, more ambitious goal for himself: to bring Sansa home before she died, clinging to the false hope that he could…

Let her see it once more...

He should stop being a fool.

He ought to find a place to stay; not to wait for her recovery, but to ease her passing… 

A place to bury her when she was gone…

But he’d never be able to leave Sansa's body for the wolves and wild dogs, for as much as he had preached to her little sister that they were her brothers and his...

So he led his company forward alongside the river, until they found a village, and a deathbed in a peasant hut for Sansa.

In the evening, the Hound’s men turned to building the palisade for their hosts, in payment of their hospitality.

All settlements of the poor and the weak had the same needs, the Hound mused, remembering himself as an unwilling builder, when he’d been hiding in a similar rat hole with Sansa’s little sister.

Now he had the luxury of remaining idle; closed, tight, bent upon himself.

He sat at Sansa’s deathbed, resisting the temptation to caress her cheek or hold her hand.

She couldn’t say yes or no. Touching her seemed very undone.

In the village, smallfolk talked of the handsome, silver prince who had flown north on a golden dragon a sennight ago.

In the Hound’s reckoning, this could be right after Aegon promised he’d return for Sansa and take her North.

_ He never meant it. _

Sansa wouldn't hear of another treason against her, dying in her sleep...

And the Hound’s grief grew great like his anger; black and useless.

The army of the Vale had also passed, the villagers said, some days later, but where it went was a matter of discord. Any side of Westeros was a possibility, except back East - for then Sandor and his party would have met them.

Armies came and went.

There was a sept in the village with the faces of the gods drawn poorly in charcoal… Father was as ugly as the disfigured Stranger; the Maiden as serious as the Crone.

Since he saw it, Sandor couldn’t stop thinking that he and Sansa  _ should _ marry before she died... just in case the buggering septons had the right of it when they preached about the sins of flesh… So that Sansa wouldn’t suffer for having bedded  _ him _ outside the bonds of marriage, when she followed the Stranger.

But she couldn’t say her vows in her state… She couldn’t speak or sit or move; only sweat and swallow and give him an empty, glassy stare…

The Sansa he knew was gone, only her shell was left.

And he was the Hound,  _ loathing  _ lies, even when he had to abide by a large number of them as Joffrey’s dog. He wasn't Tyrek Lannister, who’d gladly played along in a mummer’s farce of marrying a babe in her wetnurse’s arm to inherit her lands.

The riot in King’s Landing had put an end to Tyrek's hopes for riches; his body had never been found. The Hound strongly believed that Tygett’s boy had found his end in a bowl of brown, and that the little Lady Ermesande was happily widowed.

If the septons were right about the sins, then they weren’t wrong about marriage; a man and a woman had to be grown and enter it freely.

If he carried Sansa to the sept and said some words, his late attempt wouldn’t please the gods; it might even anger them more.

His strong hands couldn’t save her...

Everything he did had been in vain.

The village healer, or witch, depending on the perspective, brought some tea that should ease pain and fever. Sandor made Sansa drink it, but it did her as much good as water.

_ No good at all. _

Her condition remained unchanged.

To see her thus felt like having a stone in his stomach and a bigger one in his throat.

He could neither swallow nor choke on it.

On an instinct, he checked her heartbeat. It was very weak, but present.

He wondered how long it would be before she died.

The witch couldn’t tell.

A day, a sennight, a month?

It was a special case of winter wasting sickness. Or a consequence of hitting her head. Or both. She’d be able to take less and less food; less and less water. She would dwindle, like fire in the hearth without firewood.

Sansa had a gentle soul and a fragile body.

How could he have thought she could withstand the world?

She  _ needed _ a golden cage, and he was wrong in wanting to please her, fulfilling her wish to go home.

He as good as killed her.

“Sansa,” he said hoarsely, “I’ll tell you a story, alright.”

“Not a song,” he paused. 

“You’d probably like a poem, but I don’t know how to write it, so it’ll have to be a story… A long story made short.” 

The Hound’s voice lowered into an almost inaudible rasp. 

“See, there was this little burned boy whose sister was murdered first, and then his father.

He had to run away or he would suffer the same fate.

He found a new home.

There, he became a soldier, a killer, and he never questioned what he was or what he did. Everyone did it, everyone was the same.

And if perchance the boy had some doubts, he drank wine until they disappeared.

Then, many years later, Sansa, this boy, who looked and fought like a man since he was one and ten, he became a man grown like all boys do if they’re not killed.

And he met a pretty girl who asked the questions for him.

Why did he do this or that?

Why did he let everyone call him a dog?

He called her stupid, dismissing her.

But since then he couldn’t stop asking himself what he was and what he should be.

In the end he left his masters… Left you too… Thinking it for the better.

I… I left before becoming Gregor. And now I’ll never become him!” he exclaimed, approvingly.

“I don’t know what I’ll do when you’re gone... 

In your songs… I suppose I should take my own life out of irreparable heartache and follow you into the grave…

If I was a pretty knight, I suppose I’d join you in seven heavens. 

But we both know where I’ll go if heavens and hells exist. 

Don’t we, Sansa?

And it’s not to the same place as you.”

He sniffed.

His eyes were parched and dry like the tissue of his scars. His chest hurt. The stone in his throat throbbed.

“You guessed by now, didn’t you, that I won’t act like those stupid knights who die of broken heart.

I’ll keep going.

It’s what I do.

And I’ll remember your chirping.”

_ Until my dying day. _

“So that wherever I go, whatever I do... and it won’t be much I think, I think that…

I’ll just soldier for someone, somewhere, right… what else?”

_ What else, Sansa? There has never been anything else. _

“But I’ll do it as a man, not a dog,” he vowed. “I’ll ask myself questions and live by the answers.”

“So that if you… if you can see me from… from above... you can be as proud of me as you were of your late father.”

She couldn’t hear him, but she was still there, breathing.

Tears should come but they didn’t, not now when he needed them most.

His pain stayed in him, endless, shapeless, blunt, burning behind his eyelids.

There was no way to ease or diminish it.

His love couldn’t save her, couldn’t save him.

All they had was their time together in the Vale, on the roof of the world. 

There was no justice.

There wasn’t any reward for good deeds to be reaped in the future.

No wife.

No lands.

No sons or daughters.

There was only the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading.


	23. Twenty-three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks TopShelfCrazy ))) I'll never be able to thank you enough ))

“I dreamt of a maid at a feast, with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” Ghost of High Heart, ASOIAF.

**Twenty-three**

The lion opened its jaws, about to eat her.

Sansa wanted to run away, but she couldn’t, unable to move, overcome with cold and boiling heat at the same time.

She looked for the lion, but it was gone.

The room was dark and stifling. Her shift was all sweaty, clinging unpleasantly to her shivering, chilled skin.

She was alone.

She wanted to be in a cooler place, but didn't know where it was, nor understand why she’d despised it in her past. 

The past she could no longer remember.

Her eyelids snapped open and she saw a bright, white light in a doorway.

She made a step towards it and halted, uncertain.

Should she cross?

It was so beautiful. 

_ Magical. _

Behind it, she could hear voices intoning a hymn; uniting in a prayer. 

Her voice could be one of them, sweet and harmonious.

She wouldn't lack for anything if she entered.

There would be no tears, no beatings.

No treason, no claims.

No need to marry or give birth to sons she would love instead of a husband someone else had chosen for her.

She would be delivered from all harm…

She would be saved... 

Wasn't that what she wanted?

As always, she wasn't certain.

She had never been completely convinced of anything. She had to make people worthy in her head so that she could tell herself that she loved them. And yet she always noticed the signs of who they were in truth. But often she couldn't bring herself to heed those portents, wishing people were better, or for not having… more honest allies to rely on.

Yes, she knew people.

_ Ugly. Decidedly non-magical. Lying. Cruel. _

All except her family.

But her family was gone.

Did that mean she was deceitful and evil like the rest? Why else would she survive?

Or was it rather that the little good she encountered or did in the world since she left home was all there was?

Her insecurity persisted; about her wishful fabrications, about what she wanted, and what others wanted for her. But she wouldn't mention it to anyone, not to give offence or sound stupid with her hesitations.

Seven save her, but she just wouldn’t explain herself to anyone if she didn't have to.

Even if she knew how...

She’d keep such choice as was left to her. She wouldn’t give them all they wanted. Only what they could take from her no matter what she did.

That light seemed less pretty on the second glance. Less alluring.

Door faded, voices disappeared.

Very warm, huge hands fumbled with the laces of her smallclothes. She was in the open, out in the cold.

The air smelled of winter.

Her woman’s place was freezing. Wind rustled in the last leaves of a large tree. Sansa wished they were red, but they were ugly yellow.

A large palm rubbed her tummy in circles, but she couldn’t see to whom it belonged. 

This should be improper, she remembered. 

The propriety mattered. To her. To society. Did it? She wasn’t certain.

In a few moments she felt so cold that she made water, expecting admonishment for her childlike behavior.

Instead, rough hands continued massaging the lower part of her belly. A moment later they kneaded the small of her back, until pressure came to her behind. 

On an impulse, Sansa made more than just water.

Who was witnessing her most private behaviour?

She must have been blinded by the light she’d so impolitely ignored, for she was unable to see, despite her eyes being wide open.

Soon she was back to that stifling heat, under a roof, covered by a cloak stinking of  _ mule _ , seeing nothing but darkness.

She had to rest, but she couldn’t close her eyes, striving to stay awake.

Sleep scared her.

Those giant palms made her sit down, cleaning her with a washcloth, dressing her in a fresh, soap-smelling shift, putting her to bed and covering her with a prickly, woollen blanket.

She had maids in the past, but their touch had been different.

Sleep was both tempting and terrifying in her blessedly  _ clean  _ condition.

If she closed her eyes, would she see that bright light again?

She missed it now.

She was lying still when she heard a voice.

_Deep._ _Vibrating._

If it was just a tone lower, it would be inaudible from how deep it was. She couldn’t distinguish the words it formed. Only listen to its rumble.

The strange, flashing light reappeared, muting all sound.

Suddenly, she wasn’t the only one approaching the brightly lit doorway. She turned to look back, noticing a familiar young man walking behind her, older than she remembered him. Black of hair, dashing, dishevelled, he carried an unknown sword with a white wolf’s head on the pommel. Bleeding stab wounds blossomed on his red tunic like poisonous flowers.

Sansa began nervously groping different parts of her body, afraid she was also injured and…

Dying.

No, she couldn’t be dying.

Her dream was entirely too vivid for it.

Death must be something painful when it occurred, that's why she'd always been so afraid of it.

Her body seemed whole, but lacked substance, as most dreams did.

She made a step back, turning her back on… one of her brothers, running away from the strong, stunning light.

She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to succumb to its call.

In a blink of an eye, she saw  _ herself  _ from above, from the rafters under a slanted roof. Her body was lying lifelessly on a low cot in a peasant hut. A man was seated next to her, bent down, not touching her, silent and unmoving like her form. Square and huge.

She wanted to hear his voice, to know if it was that deep rumble she'd heard before, but he wouldn’t speak.

Impatient, she wanted to thrash with her feet to show her displeasure.

If she could move.

She was… out of her own body. The realisation frightened her as nothing had ever done before.

_ Speak up will you? I need to hear your voice. _

She clung to her impatience in order to control her fear, realising she was fairly certain of one thing.

If Sansa ever truly wanted something, it was not to be.

But she continued to hope for happiness, unable to do otherwise.

_ Harry, the Eyrie and Winterfell… _

This was supposed to please her.

But why would it? Why would castles won through marriage ensure her contentment? Who was Harry? Just some stranger… Did her only way back  _ home _ pass through ceding the inheritance of her forefathers to another family?

She remembered the queen, aging and bitter, despite occupying the highest position for a lady in the land.

_ Better not have any position at all. _

But this wasn't truly what she wanted either.

Sansa was raised to help her husband run  _ his _ castle, and make him an ally of  _ her _ family by her application, kindness and beauty.

Many years later, this sounded dishonest as well. She was supposed to subtly use her talents to foster her family's standing. Just like she had been used by that lion who wanted to eat her… This was far removed from the ideal of sincere respect towards her husband she had also been taught, and had nothing to do with… love… which should develop after a while, inside a marriage in which both husband and wife preserved their honour… her Mother had said.

And Sansa forgot it immediately, dreaming about another kind of love.

Daring and impossible… Born at first sight.

Yet she couldn't entirely ignore her upbringing. As a highborn, she had duties to perform. Even if, as a young girl, she would have liked to sit idle, reading or writing poetry.

Sansa suddenly yearned to look into the eyes of the man guarding her sleeping form, but he wouldn’t raise them, staring down. 

The luminous gateway reappeared, blotting out everything else.

Her brother had almost passed through it.

Sansa followed after him obediently, ready to intone the next hymn. They would be united in death with the rest of their siblings, who were already awaiting them.

A ruined, dissonant voice spoke to her from the abysmal darkness, rupturing the sweet song, spoiling it; loud and raspy.

_ Deep, deep, deep _ .

She hated it for affecting her so, and yet she wanted to hear it more clearly, wishing to determine what power it had over her, that it destroyed her latest pretty dream of painless, blissful existence beyond life’s suffering.

Darkness came, came, came.

There was no light.

Xxxx

Xxxx

Xxxx

Xxxx

A wooden castle in the cold land was crumbling down, covered in snow. Monsters roamed in its cavernous halls, tall and evil; the ugliest beings Sansa had ever seen, made of dead flesh and ice.

At least they couldn't deceive stupid girls about what they were by the ostentatious semblance of golden, undeserved beauty, or empty promises of happiness if she gave them what they wanted.

All men had been killed or ran away, and there had never been any women or children in that castle.

Sansa should flee as well, but she was too shocked to move. Her boots were stuck in snow reaching her knees. Her nose hurt from cold.

The largest monster noticed her. Taller than Ser Gregor, he began approaching her, unsheathing a horrendous sword, twice as long as Ice. She thought she would die from fear before he reached her.

The monster’s hands would grab her. His blade would slice her head off, and she wouldn’t be able to help it.

Then, the deep voice returned to keep her company.

She closed her eyes to listen to it in the time she still had.

Like before, she couldn't distinguish the words. The timbre was unique, raucous, harsh and … burnt? How did she know this??

She forgot all about monsters.

Without seeing the shiny door again, she plunged into darkness...

...and was awakened from it every so often, in regular intervals, by the provoking sound of that deep voice.

Her body stopped sweating.

Her lips were often sprinkled with water. She felt no thirst, no hunger. Food was pushed into her mouth but she mostly spat it, choking.

Only water was tolerable.

Water and the voice.

She could live on it.

After quite some time in the dark, every now and then she saw herself from above, journeying in what seemed to be a modest wheelhouse rolling over a bumpy road - if Sansa could judge well by the shaky appearance and change in scenery she glimpsed through the carriage windows as a…

A ghost of herself ? 

Her stiff body was laid in a bed that looked like a  _ bier _ used by silent sisters.

But her silent sister was that man who wouldn't let her see his eyes nor  _ speak  _ in her presence. Yet his figure was terribly familiar, tense and firm in grey armour, and the shapeless, loose tunic he wore under.

_ How do I know this? _

She remembered details about his garments which were far too intimate for a lady to be acquainted with.

And his eyes were different than anyone else’s, weren't they? More grey than grey… 

_I_ _must_ see _them again..._

_ But how? _

Maybe she would one day, if he continued talking to her. By now she was fairly certain it was he who had been telling her stories.

One every night.

Maybe one day she’d hear what his fabrications were about. Maybe he was telling her the same story over and over again. Or perhaps it hadn't been stories, but something else entirely… 

But what else could one person have been saying to another before bedtime? Was it lessons… counsels…? Could he be cursing her? Had she done something wrong?

She didn't think so.

Not to him.

Unless he wanted her to confess to a crime she hadn't committed, like others had done before him.

It would hurt her if he did…

…if he proved to be the same as everyone else, wanting her to recite pretty, meaningless words.

She could only hear him when she didn’t see him or herself from above, outside her own body. This experience was familiar by now; less confusing, and almost not frightening.

Like a good girl, Sansa slipped out of her viewing position to hear her wordless story for the night.

None came.

Instead, she was back to that snowy castle once more, the one she hadn’t dreamt of in a long, long while.

Days, months, years…

The savage giant was ruling over it.

Victorious.

Untouched.

Enthroned.

Served by others like himself, bringing him the blood of the living in polished, golden cups.

The castle couldn't be his. If it were, Sansa assumed he would have built it from snow, not merely covered it with it.

It wasn’t  _ fair _ that the true monsters won, be they ugly or beautiful.

Sansa was so angry.

Her anger didn’t matter, not truly. Because she was  _ dying,  _ and yes, she  _ knew  _ she was dying, despite deluding herself that she wasn’t, and wanting  _ her _ story…

She wouldn’t have her story for the night, nor her happiness, not even those sons she would love while being indifferent to, or more likely hating, her future lord husband and his attentions…

There was no justice for the weak.

This angered her more.

_ There should be. _

Long, stone-hard icicles hung from the frozen ceiling of the unknown, ruinous fort; tapering at the end, sharper than knives.

Neither the monster-king nor his servants paid any attention to Sansa this time.

She was a ghost. No one could see her. 

Not even that special man that was always seated so sadly next to her pale figure when she watched him from above.

She was free to haunt this castle and the dreams of its cursed inhabitants.

It occurred to her that… They must be the white walkers from Old Nan’s stories, feasting on the blood of the living.

Sansa grabbed the biggest hanging chunk of ice she could find and yanked it hard at the base. Surprisingly, it broke off as though it was made of dry twigs.

Incorporeal, ice-armed, Sansa approached the monster’s throne, with all the intention to spoil  _ his _ pretty dream.

As she came forth, the Others  _ saw  _ her, ghost or not. 

She wondered if they could drink her blood.

Her non-existing heart beat madly. It was too late to retreat.

She closed her eyes to see if the voice of the man who talked to her would save her.

But she encountered only silence.

A cold poke in her back forced her to look.

A… a  _ guard _ of the king of Others had prodded her with an icicle of his own, gesturing she should wait in the long line of servants bringing cups with blood to their king.

When it was her turn, she slowly positioned herself on her knees, looking down with feigned contrition and genuine fear.

The king of Others stared her down dismissively, demanding… what all kings wanted.

An oath of fealty.

She had no cup, and hopefully no blood to spill, being a ghost, so she offered her icicle to His Grace, as a knight swearing his allegiance would present his sword.

When the monster bowed to accept it, Sansa pushed the long spike into his chest.

_ It went where I wanted it to go, like a tourney lance,  _ she mused, paralysed with a fresh wave of fear, waiting for something  _ terrible  _ to happen as a consequence of her rebellion.

To her surprise, the monster immediately rolled off the throne, hitting the frozen ground. There was no retribution.

No punishment.

Black blood oozed from the wound she had caused.

Her weapon was stuck in it.

Sansa imagined a blue winter rose growing from the chunk of ice she'd used to…  _ slay  _ a savage giant in a castle made of snow.

The throne room shook and lost solidity. 

Dissolving into a million grains of fine sand, pouring all over Sansa, the castle vanished into nothingness.

Darkness came, came, came.

She would die now.

What else?

As always, she wasn’t certain.

Xxxxx

Xxxxx

Xxxxx

Xxxxx

Xxxxx

Water dripped slowly into her mouth. 

She coughed, choking. A few drops trickled over the ugly knots in her hair. No one had brushed it for days.

Bread and cheese crumbs followed.

She spat them out, yearning for more water.

She was the last one. 

Her remaining brother must have already crossed the bright doorway between this world and the next, stepping into the light.

Sansa wanted to say a prayer for him, but it felt terribly unnatural that she, a moribund, would pray to the gods for the dead.

_ Who will pray for me? _

Unexpectedly, Sansa began dreaming of her brother…

_ Jon _ …

She was wrong in her assumptions about his latest choice, like she’d wronged him in the past calling him her half-brother.

Jon was still standing, undecided and troubled, in that wonderfully lit doorway. 

Immersed in the darkness, Sansa thought he was staring at her emaciated figure.

The song behind the gates of the next world was celestial and innocent; a glorious pageant of continuous praise.

Her brother must have died bravely, unlike her, who just… got a little ill with mild fever from too much walking, and then slipped from her horse and hit her head.

Her end was simple and undignified.

Was it like this?

She couldn’t remember.

Jon turned away from the light and began a march towards the very familiar, snowy castle which was now rebuilt, armed and ready to withstand a prolonged siege.

The shiny sword he wielded was similar to Ice, and yet so different from it. Men dressed like trees followed him, and even more men wearing black, or southron armour.

_ No, no, no, no. _

The way back meant certain suffering.

True monsters were vanquished much easier in dreams, than in truth.

Sansa searched in vain for her brother, wishing to warn him of the danger that awaited him on his newly chosen path, but he was gone.

Then, she looked for the light, for the way out, but couldn’t find it either.

She was lost to darkness.

Xxxxx

Xxxxx

Xxxxx

Xxxxx

When Sansa began losing hope of ever hearing him again, the man who wouldn’t leave her side spoke to her once more.

His voice was sombre, deliberate, clear. The melody and the rhythm of his deep grumble were more refreshing than water.

He must be telling her a story, like an old friend. 

Like her wet nurse, Old Nan.

If Old Nan was alive, Sansa would tell her a new story, about the maid slaying the monster in a frozen castle.

_ Maid? _

She was married so she couldn’t be a maid.

_ Sansa, you’re lying,  _ she admitted to herself, but couldn’t remember what the truth was regarding her maidenhead as she fell asleep.

Xxxxxx

Xxxxxx

Xxxxxx

Xxxxxx

Her body continued on a journey.

Wheels bumped on the road.

Horses' hooves thudded, tumultuously trotting on.

She was abandoned, sprawled on a bier.

Darkness was thick, was sour, was empty, would remain hollow until she heard his voice again.

Could she fall in love with a voice?

Wasn’t that stupid?

No more stupid than the rest of her dreams, old and new.

Except that this latest fantasy was completely new, and the strangest one of all.

Marsh flowers of all shapes and colours adorned her room… no… the wheelhouse… smelling sweetly. Green, yellow and red on one side… White and bright purple on the other…

Arya had plucked a bunch of them for Father, earning a rash, when the Starks had been crossing the… the Neck.

Her brooding man must have brought them in while she slept.

The nights were so long and so lonely, and the time when he talked to her so short.

Sansa inhaled the smell and waited patiently for her bedtime story. There had to be a story before darkness, every time, so that she could sleep in peace.

But tonight there wasn’t!

_ What happened to you? Where are you? _

_ Did you enter that dark chamber from where you can see the light of the next world? _

_ Did you follow the lure of the Mother’s hymn, the promise of the voices? _

_ Did you find peace? _

True peace, not the small measure of it she could try to bring him, if he didn’t despise her attentions… Men had mocked her before, not wanting to be mothered nor comforted. Not wanting to look weak.

Was mothering him what she wanted?

Probably.

That, and so much more!

Her breath hurt, stuck in her chest.

She was terribly agitated and waved her arms, but they refused to move.

She thought she felt a crumpled sheet under the small of her back. Her skin grated against the bedding because her shift wasn't well adjusted. 

Sansa tried to move her legs.

To no avail.

She inhaled the perfume of the colourful flowers and her nose wrinkled from it, a little.

_ Wait… _

The bumping of the wheels, the thumping of hooves, the uneven texture of bed linen under her back… The shift that wrinkled because  _ she _ hadn't been still and stiff in her sleep…

The flowers… Their  _ scent _ ... 

She felt it all today. And not like in a mere dream or that strange outside vision of herself; devoid of the richness of sensations, stripped of smell and touch.

“Oh,” she sighed, breathing out deeply, afraid and very nervous.

To hope was to lose in the future.

Not to hope was having lost from the beginning.

_ Please let it be true _ , she prayed to the gods, old and new.  _ I’ll cross the next time you call me, I promise. I’ll sing for you later if that is your wish. _

She felt guilty and sinful for bargaining with the gods, but her plea was so heartfelt that it had simply burst from her chest.

The carriage stopped moving, reined in brusquely.

Sansa savoured the simple, ordinary sensation of having felt the halt.

Her eyes snapped open for true for the first time in... how long?

Days? Turns of the moon?

Years?

She hoped not.

She didn’t want to be an old woman already.

Instead of seeing her form from above, from a corner of a room, from a branch of a tree, from the ceiling of the wheelhouse… now she spotted a vividly auburn wave of her hair in the corner of her right eye, and then her chest under her chin, heaving gently, flatter than she remembered it.

“Sansa!”  _ Sandor _ burst into the wheelhouse clumsier than a horse, ripping open the door with such force that the hinges broke.

She must have sighed quite loudly when she woke.

His voice was unnaturally thin, like when they…

_ Oh. Not a maid. Most certainly not anymore. _

She didn’t have the strength to blush from her unseemly, treasured memories.

She saw him, his eyes, the pain in them, remembering everything.

_ Alyssa’s Tears. _

Sandor knelt next to her. Pulling her blanket off in a careful and yet decisive sweep, he suddenly buried his beloved, ugly head in her lap, his frowning forehead touching her belly. Her ribs were tickled by his hair; black, smooth and much finer than hers - wavy, thick and  _ strong _ despite its soft, silky appearance after brushing.

His hands seized her waist and slid down, anchoring themselves on her hips; warm and resting.

She thought she could feel her hair curl from the pleasure of his presence; the sight, the feel of him.

It was almost impossible to move her hands; lethargic, thinned,  _ skeletal _ , but somehow she slid them over his massive frame by sheer force of will. Her limp fingers ended up entangled between  _ Sandor’s _ lank mane and the irregular tissue of his scalp, harsh like tree bark on the side that… that…

She cried profusely, but not from sadness.

The wretched misery of his childhood suffering should stay in the past where it belonged, not having any power over their future.

Sansa slowly shifted the weight of her hips left and then right on the mattress, barely able to do so… and yet rejoicing that she could move at all; ever so gently rocking the cherished burden in her lap...

Holding Sandor with all her love and shedding tears of joy.

Surely, her voice would be weak like her body after such a long silence, and very far away from the celestial perfection.

_ Tremulous, fearful, breaking. _

She might as well try it.

Her eyes dried.

Her heart was filled with gratitude.

The gods must have heard her.

Her voice was steady and crystal clear when she sang the Mother’s hymn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I would have hung "major character death" already if I intended to use it even if I find that it limits my freedom to surprise you. But it's customary in fanfiction to hang that one, underage, violence, and rape/noncon if any appears and I include these warnings if any of it appears in any degree in my stories.
> 
> You all remain warned, as per summary, from the very beginning, despite that there's no fanfic convention that I know about warning for "unhappy" that Sandor may or may not win Sansa in the end.
> 
> However, I know there're guys who don't read unhappy so I even marked that.
> 
> Thank you so much for your valuable feedback and a huge lot for reading.
> 
> From olifant with love


	24. Twenty-four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks TopShelfCrazy ;-))  
> Without you all my silly stories would be abandoned by now ;-))

“Pretty thing, and such a bad liar. A dog can smell a lie, you know. Look around you, and take a good whiff. They’re all liars here... and every one better than you.” Sandor Clegane the Hound, ASOIAF.

**Twenty-four**

The causeway through the Neck was paved with flayed corpses on pikes, slowly rotting. 

Sixty-three of them.

Gregor might have dropped a word of praise for the handiwork of the unknown butcher.

If Sandor hadn't killed his brother first.

His guts danced with joy from the pleasing memory.

Sansa observed the dead with unseeing eyes, and then, she looked away.

"The ironborn, killed by the Boltons through base treachery," their dwarf guide whispered; a crannogman from the Neck with a quiver of poisoned arrows on his back. A shot from his bow meant certain death; as painful and slow as being skinned alive. The tiny killer had offered to accompany  _ Ned’s precious girl _ home, through the treacherous sands and swamps of his homeland.

The causeway was partially eaten away by floods and incessant snow.

_ Snow. _

Sandor looked around, taking in the unbelievable whiteness.

It reminded him of climbing the Giant's Lance.

He’d become fond of the pretty, deadly white blanket, beckoning to the traveller to lay down and find eternal rest.

Ned’s precious girl could barely walk after the long illness that had almost killed her; leaving the wheelhouse only for necessities that she now performed on her own...

He had no reason to enter the carriage of an unmarried lady, especially not at night. His men spied on him, rightfully concerned for Sansa’s honour, which would be irreparably tarnished if he was found in her bed. Even if she only _moaned_ for all to hear while he was in there.

He gave a rat’s arse for anyone’s judgment. 

Some men might even admire him, if they knew that he fucked Sansa.

But how would she feel? 

Her father was a bugger who died for honour. Sansa surely wouldn't take the condemnation lightly.

Besides, she looked… too fragile to be embraced as he would have wished, weighing little more than a child.

He constantly thought of asking her.

_ Will you marry me when you're better? _

_ Marry me, will you? _

_ Will you? _

_ Will you, please? _

_ Why wouldn’t you? _

_ If you want to be in my arms… _

Her eyes kept telling him that she _would_ want his embraces, during endless, innocuous conversations they pursued in daytime, on the interminable journey to the bloody North.

_ And yet why would you? _

If she came into possession of her claim, Sansa could marry anyone. Once she forged a solid alliance with another great house, she would be safe from beatings for a lifetime.

It was best not to consider his marriage prospects, and yet they were never far from the surface in Sandor’s churning mind.

The kingsroad was in the same poor condition as the causeway; almost washed away by rain and snow.

The days grew colder, the nights freezing.

Colour returned to Sansa’s pale cheeks from the chill. Her curves were not yet back to the fullness he adored, but at least her bones were no longer disturbingly visible.

The ruined road wound on, past Barrowton and further North. 

The calm, and the giddy contentment Sandor experienced because Sansa’s health was improving, alternated with wet dreams of what they had done… Of him inside her… of his fingers and tongue in her cunt… And of what they never did..  _  Not yet.  _ She might put her mouth around his cock one day… or let him have her from behind… In the wheelhouse… In bloody Winterfell, why not?

Few nobles  _ married  _ for love.

Sansa could keep her dog. Find him a place. Call it an appointment. A captain of something. An honourable guard. A steward. A castellan. Chain him in a kennel inside her castle. A kennel _ master _ , why not?

But what would it do to him?

How much time would it take before he showered her in contempt; for being below her, rather than with her.

Even if she didn’t take a husband…

And if she did…

His guts would cry for murder. He would leave before he killed her.

He  _ might _ kill her, losing his temper. Then, his guilt would fester and slowly eat him alive, like a wound from that poisoned arrow from the crannogs.

But she was  _ his _ now. How could he ever leave her?

And she’d made it clear to him in the Vale that she would hate for him to leave.

He had to ask.

It was the only way forward.

But with her health returning, and Winterfell approaching, the words always stayed on his burned lips, unable to escape.

Torn apart, he waited; spending time with her every day, doing nothing.

Watching her.

He could study her in peace now, without any effort in stealth or a carefully presented show of indifference. The sweetness of the idle endeavour struck him; patching him where he didn’t know he was broken, sewing him together, and anew. 

She engaged him in conversation, about the buggering wild flowers he’d picked for her in the marshes when she slept… Yes, his hands had itched for days from it. About the weather, the men in their company… They spoke of everything that wasn’t  _ them _ ; their past or their future _. _

Sansa was probably unable to speak honestly and openly about a matter as improper as  _ them,  _ and to his surprise, so was he.

He who could name everything without flinching hesitated to admit aloud what they were.

_ Lovers. _

They remained connected, despite not having touched with impropriety since she’d woken from her illness…

And…

Sang to him again, like she'd done after the bloody battle; this time holding his entire face in her lap with her weakened arms.

Bird’s touch.

Light touch.

A touch of light...

He had felt so young, and innocent. 

Joy had never fully left his heart since then, not even when he was plagued with doubts about his future.

_ Their  _ future.

The wheelhouse, and Sansa’s bed in it, was rather small. They would barely fit in it, laying together. He had gotten the fancy means of transport for ladies in Darry, when it became obvious that Sansa wouldn’t die soon, as he’d initially expected in the blindness brought by his grief. The carriage was much more modest than Cersei’s. Yet in order to get it, the Hound had to promise gold he didn't have, after a winter which he might not survive.

War was brewing in the North, his host in Darry had said; a widowed Lady Lannister, born Frey.

Against the snarks and grumkins; the ancient monsters of ice.

Lady Amerei had no use for the wheelhouse in the cold season, so she didn't lose anything by believing his lies. He could have gotten more than carriage from her, in the  _ dark _ , if he wanted.

But he had a sick love to look after; a pretty girl who looked at him and saw him in plain daylight.

Now, two turns of the moon later, the men he trusted, leading them from the Vale, were constantly being joined by small groups of cold-eyed, but not as cold-blooded, Northmen; stubborn and judgmental, they began to guard  _ Ned’s _ little girl day and night.

The word of her return was somehow spread, though no one knew how or why. 

Her compatriots loved him not; remembering the Lannister dog.

She treated all equally, and with natural grace, refined and perfected with time into not revealing much; her honest bluntness well hidden.

Sandor slept outdoors with his sword at hand, terribly suspicious. Too many people had heard of her, and some might not love her. The Stranger could visit her in the heart of the night, brought by unknown foes, attacking.

But despite all his fears, his nights went by uneventfully, long and black, in eerie quiet and mounting cold.

One night, she came out to meet him in moonlight. 

He was armed and alert in a frozen field, white like the blazon of the Kingsguard, hearing her step of a child learning to walk.

“Why are you here?” He rasped.

She’d asked the same of him when he had fallen asleep in her bed after Blackwater; out of his mind from all the burning.

He resented her for not seeking him out earlier.

Yet he was guilty of the same. He could have sneaked into the wheelhouse under the cover of darkness, despite the vigilance of her precious Northmen... And he didn’t, couldn’t, needing her to get better before he could-

“I miss you,” she announced in that solemn tone of hers. “You, the white towers of the falcon’s nest.”

There was no mistake as to what she meant.

She’d come out of her solitude to see her lover.

And it was  _ him. _

He used to think she was lying when she spoke like that.

Now he believed her more than any septon he’d heard preaching in his life.

The camp slept, the fires were dying.

Sandor put his sword away, pulling her into his lap, smelling her warmth; unable to feel much of it through his armour.

“Marry me,” he rasped.

“What did you say?” she exclaimed, suddenly skittish in his arms. “You truly mean it? You’d do it right now?”

“You heard me,” he retorted sharply,  retreating on his marriage offer in his mind. How could he have said it when he knew…?

He knew...

“You want it?” she was tense.

“The lady doesn’t, does she?” he barked, surrendering to anger.

_ Or course you don't. You’ll marry a pretty knight one day. _

“I just-” she stuttered, fluttering in his grasp.

“Spare me,” his temper flared. “Forget it.”

She hissed from pain.

His left arm had ended up pressed tightly against her back, still clad in a sharp metal glove and vambrace. 

Sandor released Sansa instantly, embarrassed by his clumsiness.

He’d become used to touching her freely, forgetting himself, his place, and his warlike attire.

“I’ll try not to remember,” she said weakly. “Unless I should?”

He couldn’t form an answer, peeling off the bloody gloves and vambraces, closing his bare fingers around her frail body. “I didn’t mean to-”

“You didn’t, did you?” she sounded more hurt than he would have expected from the discomfort caused by his armour. “Very well, Sandor,” she concluded, “I’m sorry to have bothered you. Help me return to my bed, please.”

After that, she didn’t speak or smile to him for days.

The first few of those days he hadn’t noticed the difference in her carefully schooled attitude; immersed in his fears of unknown attackers and concerns for her safety.

Then, he ignored it.

It was natural that it would be so.

Love didn’t last forever, not even in the songs.

And their love was left on the mountain; forgotten, abandoned.

Down here, he was still a dog.

But when the northern gnats told them both that they might reach Winterfell on the morrow, he waited for the moon to wane and sneaked into the wheelhouse; sober and somber.

Instead of clamping her mouth, he whispered, “Sansa.”

He was greeted with stony silence which was very much awake, despite pretending to be asleep.

“Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll leave, tonight,” he spat out arrogantly, like he would address her in the past, bragging about the strength of his arms.

Fear gripped his heart with long fingers and sharp claws.

_ You don’t, do you? How could you? _

“Does it matter? You’ve already accompanied  _ the lady  _ home unharmed, protecting her from snarks and grumkins,” Sansa was  _ furious. _

He admired her, wishing for light to better see her anger.

“Isn’t that all you needed? Or do you want a bag of gold for your efforts?”

“Sansa,” he pleaded. “Don’t be  _ stupid _ ,” he said with scorn. “If it please you,” he added, feeling like a fool.

“You tell me,” she demanded now, with passion.

“What?” he blurted.

“You know what,” she trembled, “if it please  _ you _ ,” she implored. “What you said on the mountain. I need to know that it wasn’t another dream of mine. I…”

He couldn’t fulfil her wish.

He wasn’t a gnat repeating words of love on a woman’s whim. Not even Sansa’s.

_ Do you not know? _

He-

“It’s just…” she complained heartily. “It hurts… when you aren’t what I want you to be.”

“What do you want me to be?”

And just like this, Sansa was in his arms after the prolonged anguish of her illness and months of self-imposed separation that followed.

“Everything,” she breathed out. 

Sansa was everything to him, without needing to move her little finger for it. 

“Tell me how. I’ll be anything for you,” he blurted, his arms sneaking under her loose sleeping shift.

She was skinnier, her curves were smaller, but still wonderfully smooth to touch.

“For a start, don’t… don’t  _ bark  _ at me! For… For not saying immediately what you want to hear,” she pleaded nervously, but her body felt more at ease in his embrace. “It is disheartening. I’m trying so hard to guess what I should say to you most of the time… And I have no one else to talk to about my new trouble...”

_ New trouble? _

He felt oddly insulted for not being the only source of her misery.

“Is there something you wanted to say?” he asked coldly, assuming wildly. “That it’s over? That I should forget you?”

She shook her head,  _ stiffening. _

“What is it?” he asked with more calm. “Go ahead. Say it.”

She became painfully tense, facing away from him while he kept holding her. “I have been dishonest,” she stated with heartfelt pain. “I… I’m stupid like Joffrey said.”

“You’re not,” he contradicted her, though he’d believed it about her in the past. That she was empty-headed like a colourful, singing bird from the Summer Isles, repeating words others had taught her.

She relaxed, a little. “Do you remember the men who joined us today?”

He did. Three handsome buggers with whole faces. Long black hair, like his own. One had looked at Sansa and tossed some empty words of flattery at her, and Sandor had wanted to kill him.

“Prettier than me,” he grinned nastily.

“Please promise me that you won’t be angry,” she pleaded, “I feel sick because of it. I… I’m afraid that I will turn  _ ill _ again. I think… it's true what they say… if a lady does what we did… she acts shamefully and becomes wanton. Dishonourable.”

He was already angry.

“What did he do?” he snarled with venom.

“Nothing!” Sansa sounded mad and looked utterly miserable. “It was me…”

She’d fallen in love with someone else. A handsome Northman…

He pushed her away, about to leave.

“Where are you going?” she seemed horrified. Her arms were snakes, coiling tightly around his large form, holding him in place. “I missed you! I have no one else… I am the worst…” she chastised herself and began to cry, squeezing his stomach muscles.

He stayed, diving into his despair over the inevitable. He’d always known she wouldn’t be his forever. “What did you do, Sansa?” he asked darkly, filled with poison.

“Nothing!” she insisted. “I… I have been ill, maybe that's the reason. And those men are  _ stupid _ … despite being from the North. I don’t even  _ like  _ them. They gave me platitudes about my beauty… And I flattered them in return because we need more men, not knowing what we’ll find in Winterfell… And because kindness is  _ never  _ wasted. It can open doors better than yelling…”

Sandor disagreed. Snarling had opened almost any path to the Hound in the past.

“But one of them was pretty, as you’d say; and my stupid belly  _ turned _ , a little, as it does when I see you… In truth, it was much  _ less  _ than when I see  _ you _ . But it was still the same feeling… It’s  _ sinful.  _ I’m  _ ruined.  _ If I love  _ you,  _ how can I experience  _ this  _ for anyone else?!”

Sandor’s head was larger than the great pumpkins of the Vale. “You mean you felt like you wouldn’t mind fucking a boy for a bit of pleasure, despite knowing he’s a gnat? And wanting to fuck  _ me  _ much more?”

Sansa preferred him… she’d compared him to a handsome fuck that had drawn her attention and still wanted him…

He felt like he had passed through fire unscathed. An unknown piece of his wounded soul received an unusual ointment. A balm. Calming him.

Sansa’s cheeks were hot like coals and she must have been beet red. He couldn’t see how much in the scarce starlight passing through the carriage window.

“How can I feel this for another at  _ all _ when I know myself to be in love with you? Before us… I never felt this, or not clearly… Maybe very little with Ser Loras, when he gave me that red rose at the Hand’s Tourney. I mistook the tiny trembling of my body for love… But I only discovered this feeling more fully in my dreams of you…”

“Dreams of me?” he blurted.

“After you left. You’d climb into my bed and say you’d have a song from me… I was overwhelmed by the sensation and… my body hummed and tingled like it does now, before we… Then I would wake,” words poured out of her and he knew she wasn’t lying.

“I had the same dream,” he confessed, “but mine rarely ended only with getting into your bed. It ended with you sprawled over me after a good fuck.”

Sansa’s redness must have deepened. “Oh…” she paused. “The same dream?”

“Many times,” he admitted. “It stopped when I found you, though.”

“So did mine,” she shared.

He remembered the faces of the gods from the Vale and wondered, wondered...

He didn’t know when he had begun caressing the small of her back… His attention seemed to be calming Sansa’s nervousness… Not only… It made her cling to him, seeking to  _ feel _ his blessedly unarmoured body from tip to toe,  _ draping him _ , just like she’d done so often in his fruitless, beautiful dreams of her on the Quiet Isle.

All impulse to snarl or despise her for having eyes for pretty boys vanished.

He was at her mercy.

“A man can want a fuck and go for it simply because he has a chance, is all,” he rasped. “Or think of it from eyeing a pair of teats and forget it later, returning to his chamber without doing anything. Why not a woman?”

“You can _want_ that… feel _that..._ _do_ that… without… without _any_ love? Independently of it? Why?” Sansa sounded mortified; her view of the world shattered once more.

Sandor shrugged. “Why does it snow in winter?” he teased her.

His arms closed tightly around her.

There were no boys in the wheelhouse and he wouldn’t leave her to any of them.

“Was there another one for you since you confessed your love to me?” Sansa was shocked and terrified.

“No,” he replied truthfully. “I could swear it on my sister’s grave.”

“But in King’s Landing there was,” she said sadly after a long while.

He couldn’t deny it.

“More of them?” she looked horrified, assuming further.

“When I could-”

“Did you tell them you loved them?” her voice was an outraged whisper, almost deeper than his. She struggled to wriggle out of his grasp, but he wouldn’t let her.

He shook his head, struck to the core. No one had ever resented him before for having a fuck here and there.

It was  _ she  _ who’d briefly desired a pretty boy  _ now,  _ and yet it was  _ he _ who felt guilty like seven hells. Because he wouldn’t let her have anyone else if he could choose, and yet he’d enjoyed the freedom he would deny her in the past.

“I never  _ threatened _ to kill any other girl but you,” he blurted. “I just killed them at times, like I would kill anyone else.” 

_ The weak. And me, the butcher. _

“I saved all my sweet talk for you, I fear,” he joked dryly. “I must have been as bitter in my unwanted confessions towards you in King's Landing as those awful cakes you used to stuff yourself with at every opportunity,” he mocked himself, sounding almost… courtly. 

“You remember that I like lemoncakes?” Sansa beamed at him, looking so young that he felt sick, wanting to run away.

_ What do you want? _

Melt into  _ his  _ skin, for a start. She’d wanted it from that first time she’d come into his bed in the Eyrie, lying on top of him stark naked, thinking he wouldn’t wake from it…. ignorant about what she was doing, and how men reacted to it…

She had been fortunate he’d been asleep and bloody tired from climbing. He felt relieved now, remembering how the episode had thankfully ended before he could misunderstand her; taking her on an offer she hadn’t made…

Right now, Sansa wasn’t as decisive in sticking her precious little hands under his garments as he could be if he began undressing her, but her intention to have him naked in her bed was unmistakable. 

Why did he want to marry her if he could have this?

This was more than enough.

He parted from her, impatient, stripping in two moves, coming back, embracing her and finding her naked in return. Her speed in undressing had surprisingly matched his. She was thin, yes, but didn’t feel as if she would break if he held her freely; arms roaming over her back, her hips, her behind.

“How’s this?” his voice was terribly low. Her nipples were hard against his bare chest.

“Warm,” she murmured, finding his lips.

His head was empty.

He was mindless.

Overtaken.

They lay side by side, pressed against each other. One of her legs circled his waist. Her wetness was on his cock, and it was too good. Waiting or speaking became an impossibility.

He was inside her without making a single push. Nor did she make any real effort to straddle him. They just fitted together.

It felt like... sliding into place, like… heavenly oblivion… simple, and honest, and natural; utterly, unbelievably good.

He went slow, needing to savour this, rather than waste his pleasure immediately like his body strongly suggested.

Close to the edge, he began pulling out. Her leg squeezed his arse tightly, not allowing him. She led him deeper, freezing in place around his cock, then moving gently, and yet in a devastatingly pleasurable way.

He heard her sighing now, or maybe she was crying against his missing ear.

“Here,” she murmured sweetly, “here…”

Her movement became a torment, both too fast and too slow, treacherous, as she hunted her pleasure.

He wondered if she knew exactly what she was after by now, or if she was still blind to the goals of her body; aimlessly following her instincts like when they became lovers…

He thought of Gregor; dead, oozing black blood, and of his new horse that used to belong to his  _ late  _ brother.

He thought of Stranger, butchered.

He thought of his face, burning.

He thought of faceless women and children being killed by him, whose names he didn’t know…

He thought of the bloody mountain in the Vale, and the different faces of the buggering gods.

He thought of...

Sansa became shaky and sweaty, trembling erratically, grazing his ear… She… kissed him so sweetly, exhaling loudly, finding a position on him that was too much to bear; too tight to believe it was true.

He allowed himself to think of what he was doing, and to consider only Sansa in all her splendour...

Pulling out, he spilled himself all over, shaken and terribly content with his achievement.

Yes, he was able to please  _ her,  _ and not only himself. He could tell the signs by now.

He just had to shut up. Follow. Lead. Give. Take.

All of it at once.

This was the easy part, perhaps. 

Like killing had always been, after the first few lives he had taken.

Yet he might lose Sansa in Winterfell.

_ Ned’s precious little girl. _

In the castle of her forebears, she’d belong to  _ everyone. _

Except to him.

Her precious Northmen would find husbands for her; a long line to choose from, queueing up for her lovely hand. They would thank him for bringing the lady home, and call him a Lannister dog behind his back, wondering when he would return to his warm, southron kennel, and vanish from their sight.

_ No. _

_ I haven’t come this far for  _ _ nothing _ _. _

He would have to do things he wasn’t good at.

Speak to the bloody people and buggering nobles, flatter them, argue in his favour. Swear vows… Beg… maybe. Withhold from leaving bruises and breaking bones in the yard for his morning pleasure… Make himself heard and understood.

Be a much more accomplished liar than any of them.

A second son of a minor house, who had finally  _ killed _ his brother.

He wasn’t born in a ditch.

And even if he had been, he would act the same. 

He wouldn’t leave without a fight.

He could be as good as anyone.

_ Or as evil. _

Was that all a man was?

A possibility?

(He wouldn't think about it  _ now _ .)

“How was that?” he asked lazily. “Should I do more?”

“You must know! It was lovable, Sandor. You were staring at me when I… You  _ waited  _ for me,” Sansa effusively admitted what he’d already assumed in his arrogance, yet it was profoundly reassuring to hear it from her mouth. “And it didn’t hurt at all. I thought that it would, every time, at least a little.  Especially now that we didn’t love each other for so long. But it seems that… the more I needed you to hurt me, the less you did.”

“If I hear that anyone else hurt you like this,” he said, having to, needing her to know the truth about him, and yet choose  _ him  _ over any other man _ , _ “I’d kill him.” 

“No one did,” she hurried her response. “Though some tried... before you came to the Vale.”

“And if you laughed at me with him behind my back, playing me for a stupid fool, I’d kill you too,” he finished his thought.

There was… there was fear in Sansa’s eyes, there had to be. He was being damn honest, and serious.

The Stranger was feared by all, and was never far away from the Hound.

Silence was thick around them; their bodies slick against each other, languid and pleasured.

“And if I hear you hurt another woman like this… if you betray my trust like all the others...” Sansa whispered after a while, “you’d be like dead for me. You wouldn’t exist.”

Sandor was… gratified.

No woman had ever asked him to keep faith with her, and much less in terms he could understand.

“So I should do it,” he rambled, laughing like dogs snarling in a pit from sheer happiness.

“I see,” she was offended by his derisory behaviour, attempting to extract herself from his arms.

He grinned madly, tightening his grip on her.

The Stranger was infatuated by death. 

He found it pleasing.

As long as nothing was burning.

“What I mean is, I’d love to die by your hand,” he voiced an intimate wish. “After a lifetime at your side.”

She tensed from his words, and then leaned into him, on that small, useless cot.

As if they could be any closer than they already were.

“Sandor,” she said,  _ kissing  _ his eyes, “Don’t be silly. No one’s going to die. I’m so afraid of dying.”

_ Why me why me why me then?  _ he thought,  murderous, and tremendously pleased to be her man.

After everything.

Sleep clutched him, conquering his senses, erasing the sweetness of her kisses from his face.

He realised he’d just repeated the same mistake he had made after all the burning, when he’d offered to take her home and kill anyone who’d hurt her.

A mistake of never giving Sansa a chance to answer any of his sudden proposals… of protection… or marriage.

He assumed she would refuse him, then and now…

He would ask again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and for comments ))
> 
> Final chapter in May, June the latest.
> 
> May or may not
> 
> Both is equally possible


	25. Twenty-five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks TopShelfCrazy.
> 
> And with a heavy heart, I present you - the end.
> 
> Don't scroll down.

“There are gods and there are true knights too. All the stories can't be lies.” Sansa Stark, ASOIAF

**Twenty-five**

Large fires burned on the walls of Winterfell.

A banner with the flayed man on a pink field flew high over the battlements, replacing the direwolf.

_ Oathbreakers,  _ Sansa thought, sickened.  _ Liars. _

Though she was a liar too, and a coward. A little girl who couldn’t tell King Robert how Joffrey treated Arya and the butcher’s boy, claiming she didn’t remember.

Lady died on the queen’s whim, made possible by Sansa’s silence. Her gentle wolf lay buried in a lichyard behind the high walls of her home...

She had to go to her, to the graves of her forefathers… 

No Bolton lay in the crypts of Winterfell.

Starks did.

Heads were on spikes above the gates.

“Stannis,” Sandor announced, sounding bored; pointing irreverently at the square, balding, aged head with closely cropped blue beard.

He wasn’t disinterested, Sansa knew. Storm rarely abated inside him, the gnawing anger at the world and the… the awfulness in it that… the anger that kept him going, perhaps. The deeply-ingrained memory of fire and injustice. He seemed completely at ease only when he… slept in her arms. That recollection was... incredibly sweet.

But the present moment was not, demanding her attention.

Sansa had never seen Lord Stannis in person. After observing his severed head with haunted, blackened eyes, she was glad for it.

She said a silent prayer nonetheless. 

His fate might have been unjust, like Father’s.

Next to Stannis… Sansa recognised the lifeless, fat face of one of the most faithful Stark bannermen.

“Lord Manderly!” she exclaimed, 

Two more heads belonged to women, shaggy and yet… defiant, their dead gaze focused on… life.

The beauty of it.

At times.

Sansa wondered if she would look the same if her next would-be protector beheaded her.

_ Full of freshly betrayed hope. _

A small company of haggard soldiers camped under the walls in deep, deadly snow, clinging to tiny fires. Both men and flames seemed to be slowly dying from hunger, without dry wood and supplies. Their sigils were… Southron… Small houses… from Stormlands.

“Stannis’ men,” Sandor commented flatly. “He lost again.”

Sansa came back home only to confirm that it was stolen from her as Petyr had claimed, by the nobles who’d betrayed Robb after crowning him their king, and who were now letting someone else’s men die from hunger.

_ A cruel fate. _

The Southron soldiers should go to Wintertown, a bit further down the kingsroad, if they wanted to survive. Maybe they didn't know about the northern custom of building shantytowns next to castles in winter, or they found it ignoble to live among smallfolk.

Her horse, timid like herself, neighed and stomped; a different animal than the one she’d fallen from in the Mountains of the Moon. Sansa struggled with the reins. Recalling the detested riding lessons from her childhood, she succeeded in keeping him in check.

She’d never fall from a horse again, not if she could help it, though she still disliked riding.

"Shall we demand to go in?" she inquired, trying to sound assured.

She ought to be the Stark of Winterfell… It was her duty.

Four men flanking her snorted in unison, despite being different like the sun and the moon; a Northman, a crannogman, a knight from the Vale… 

and Sandor…

…her lover…

Not to blush was hard.

The inside of her thighs ached sweetly, preserving the precious memory of their loving; a truth etched in her skin.

_ No more lies, no more pretending when we’re alone…  _

_ Thank the gods. _

But it saddened her heart that there were so many untruths lurking between them and the world.

While Sandor feigned boredom, she pretended to be calm. While he hid the storm in his heart, she concealed nervousness and fear. And they both feigned masterfully that there was  _ nothing  _ between them, despite having shared so much.

It wasn't supposed to be that way.

_ But so few things are as they ought to be. _

Direwolf banners should fly over Winterfell, and the castle walls shouldn't be on fire. A waste of firewood in winter, boasting in vain the power of the lord who held it.

She'd misspoken again, she realised, with her simple question about entering. 

Her men would know she was weak and making poor decisions. They’d never follow her.

_ The Boltons won’t open. Why would they? _

Five hundred men in her retinue, more than half of them on foot, couldn’t hope to besiege and recapture her home.

But how could she go away?

Where would she go?

She could have returned home with all the knights and armies of the Vale, married to one of them… a likely  _ heir _ to the House Arryn… had events gone just a little differently… But they wouldn’t be following  _ her _ , only her husband and her claim… After, the best she could hope was to be left in peace to bear children; a prize that didn’t matter after fulfilling her use.

Sansa fumbled with the huge shirt of mail and boiled leather she was wearing, trying to tighten it. She'd put it over her gown, wishing to rise to the occasion of a Stark returning home; ready to face battle if needs be.

(Though she would only be in the way if and when fighting erupted…)

Her efforts were unsuccessful, clothing-wise. The shirt would have been too large even when her breasts were still full. Now, after her illness, she swam in it. It was just a tad more fitted than if she'd tried to wear full, inflexible body armour.

"If it please you, my lady," Sandor addressed her courteously, tying her belt in a knot instead of using the metal clasp.

It was an uncommon arrangement, but it helped.

It even… looked fine.

"Thank you," she replied gratefully, feeling guilty for regretting his polite tone and chaste, squire-like gesture at the bottom of her heart.

His action was  _ sweet.  _ Yet it spoke at length of the outward distance between them.

Sansa wanted to bridge it, not knowing where to begin.

After readjusting the helm she also wore, she shook the reins as decisively as she was able to. Her hands trembled. The horse obeyed, cantering forward. 

Her action was madness.

Yet what else was to be done?

Near the gates, she uncovered her head so that the guards could recognise her. They wouldn’t feather her with an arrow for her insolence, would they?

_ Ned’s little girl. _

Not anymore...

“I am Sansa Stark,” she said in a trance, not knowing if she was alone or accompanied. Sandor must have been by her side, but she couldn’t see him. All she saw was Winterfell and her duty to reclaim it. “Open the door.”

Giving a second glance to the heads on spikes, she wondered if Father saw his doom approaching when he denounced Cersei’s high treason and Joffrey’s ancestry.

_ This is how it ends…  _ she mused. Petrified, paralysed, empty-headed... Nervous, disconcerted, afraid...

Her hair billowed in the winter wind, redder and longer than ever; the shades of dark brown gone.

She didn’t know how long she waited. 

The drawbridge was lowered, the gates gaped open.

A homely young man rode forth to meet his visitors. Black of hair, dark of armor, with a light pink cloak. His lips were wormy, meaty, uglier than Joffrey’s. A large cavalry host followed in his wake. 

_ Northmen, serving the Boltons. _

Why did she ever think Northmen were different, and would remain loyal to the Starks?

Time and circumstances reshaped old allegiances.

She made the same mistake as Father and she’d perish for it. Her legs were jelly, her heart a crumpled parchment.

Sandor would die.

All her men would be slaughtered, like the entire Stark household in King’s Landing, including Septa Mordane and Arya.

Sansa knew all nobles in the North by their name, yet she couldn’t place the leader. Roose Bolton’s son had died… 

This one had similar eyes, tiny and cold.

_ A natural son. _

_ A bastard. _

“Look, look,” the unattractive youth said, sounding amused like Joffrey when he had petitioners to punish. “I lost one bride and I’m receiving a new one. The prettier of the two sisters.”

“Arya!” Sansa exclaimed. “You're lying! How could you have married Arya? She died years ago!”

“She didn’t,” Sandor rasped behind her back.

“Didn’t she?” Sansa turned back towards her lover, astonished to the core.

“Lady Arya was delightful in bed,” the would-be Bolton drawled on, smacking fat lips. “A treat for my dogs and myself. I hear she died when my late friend Stannis sent her to the Wall in this poor, snowy weather. I’m widowed, see. Twice, I must add. My first wife had a very delicate disposition. Alas, she’d forgotten to ask for food until she was so hungry that she ate her fingers. After such ignominious behaviour, it was too late for a Maester to save her. You could say she died from indigestion.” Lips munched, slurped. “When I contemplate your beauty, my lady, I’m certain that you will please me more than any of my late wives, when properly  _ trained _ .”

Sansa had never heard more repulsive or more ominous proposals, despite having endured outrageous and cruel treatment in the past.

Here was a new suitor she would hate, and Sandor had taken his offer back…

Should she even try to influence events so that she could marry Sandor, if that was no longer his desire? If he was content to remain her secret lover... She believed she might be able to live  _ that  _ lie, if there was no other possibility. Less than that was inconceivable. He wouldn't abandon her, would he? Maybe she should marry a man like Ser Lyn Corbray, who didn't care for ladies’ charms, and all would be fine. 

But now the smell of blood was in the air, and its colour in Sandor’s eyes.

The battle would start at any moment.

Sansa wondered where to position herself not to hinder the inevitable, and to pray for the impossible.

_ For victory. _

Horns blew in the wolfswood, deep, raucous, loud.

_ Do they have more men? Will they surround us and butcher us? _

Sandor trotted rapidly backward, though not far from her, to assess the new threat.

Sansa looked after him. It seemed to her that the retreat was cut off; horns sounding shrilly from all sides.

Bolton laughed. “I didn’t expect the Umbers to be back so soon.”

“These aren’t Umber horns,” Sansa blurted haughtily. She could tell by the sound. Unfamiliar. Wild.

“No?” A trace of uncertainty on his repellent face.

A challenge in Sandor’s stony gaze. An impatience. A wish to kill.

Bolton riding swiftly forward, arms seizing her. 

Her, screaming in the wind, manoeuvering her horse to wrench herself free from the unwanted grip, staying in saddle to her disbelief, despite having been certain that this time she  _ would _ fall.

Sandor’s arms closing around her waist.  _ Too briefly... _ Checking she was  _ fine _ and wouldn’t slide down...

His mad, loud laugh, like dogs snarling in the pit.

Was he proud of her for freeing herself, or just taken with joy at the prospect of killing?

Sandor’s greatsword drawn, yes, but not  _ only _ Sandor’s.

Her heart, constricting from fear.

_ Many _ blades unsheathed, knives and axes in the air.

Her, riding to stand behind the lines, to a place of relative safety. Sandor, following.

The vanishing distance between her men and the Boltons, the anger, the fury! The uncertainty in many northern eyes on both sides as they advanced, about to butcher each other...

A blade… Sandor’s… no, not Sandor’s at all…

A thin sword of an armoured squire, galloping from the wood towards the cold-eyed lord, shouting a word. The men of the Vale letting him through with deference.

Wormy lips, smiling. A knife aimed at the imprudent youth with deadly precision.

“Eyrie!” the squire let out a blast, and Sansa saw clearly the falcon on his helm, the sky blue cloak on his back...

Sandor's black horse leaping forward, his master  _ late _ in understanding, just like Sansa.  _ No! _ Surely too late in arriving-

Sweetrobin’s sword hitting the black armour hard, failing to hit any weak spot... 

Bolton  _ grabbing _ Lord Arryn with a meaty arm, peeling his  _ winged  _ helm off, putting a knife at his throat, drawing blood- 

Sandor, just not there yet-

Her, howling from grief.

Angry eyes, red eyes, white fur, strong paws, leaping up from snow _. _

Biting the horse’s leg, chewing on Bolton’s leg.

Robin leaning his head backward, away from his butcher's knife…

A red garnet in Bolton’s ear, twinkling.

Uncertainty.

The thin sword in Bolton’s eye, buried deep...

The screaming, the pain…

“I made the bad man fly,” Robin whispering weakly, tumbling down from his horse. 

The freshly fallen snow...

The direwolf, snarling savagely, victorious.

Blood, blood, blood… So much blood.

Red.

And then black.

Sansa couldn’t breathe.

xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx

She woke in her  _ parents’ _ bed in Winterfell with shaky hands, after a nightmare. She must be asleep still, an ugly dream ceding place to a beautiful one.

“Mother?” she said with hope.

Instead, there were  _ leeches _ on her bare arms, and two Maesters from the Vale bent over her like woods witches, one for each branch of the House Royce.

_ Not a dream. _

Fear invaded her heart.

Before she could faint again from being leeched, a smelly salt was brought to her nose. A glance to her right revealed a flask with sweetsleep on her bedside table.

Was she made to drink it?

_ Slow poison. _

_ How long have I slept? _

She didn’t dare ask.

“Lord Robert?” she inquired instead, regaining her composure, donning her lady’s armour woven of courtesies.

_ Sandor? Where is he? _

“Our lord is in good health, thanks to the Seven,” Maester Colemon muttered.

_ But not to you or me,  _ Sansa thought, remembering with guilt how she’d agreed to giving her cousin sweetsleep with his milk, to stop him from shaking.

While the cure was very simple and at hand: to hold him still until a seizure ended… He had yet to die from one. They always stopped after a while.

Sansa sat up.

“No!” Both Maesters protested vociferously.

She wouldn’t rest. She would see for herself if her latest dream was true.

Leeches fell off her arms, fattened from her blood. She averted her eyes.

Pulling the sleeves down, she hopped off her bed. Lacing her boots, she ignored the mail shirt on the chair and the nagging of the Maesters.

The gown would do for now, grey with dark blue ribbons. A sober, travelling dress. And a dark cloak against the cold in the drafty, unheated corridors.

The Great Hall was full of men, rejoicing, the high chair of the Starks empty.

Or not quite.

_ Ghost  _ lay next to it.

_ It wasn't a dream. None of this is a dream… _

She walked to her father’s seat and took it, lowering her right hand to carefully pat Ghost behind his ears, half-expecting he would bite her. But the wolf's ears only pricked briefly, before relaxing. The animal remained quiet, resting.

“Lady Sansa, welcome back,” Lord Glover greeted her gallantly.

She was almost certain she had seen him among Bolton men. This one was… unmarried, if she recalled correctly. His brother had wife and children.

“Thank you, Lord Glover,” she replied courteously, acting as if she had witnessed every turn of the battle, as if she had never fainted, as if she knew the heart of every man in  _ her  _ hall, and the strength of his allegiance.

Robin and Bronze Yohn were at her table, a welcome sight. And Harry the Heir, much less welcome, praising Robin’s courage. Sweetrobin, thanking Harry in return for the suggestion to make the bad man fly…

Her, realising that Harry meant to have her cousin  _ die  _ bravely.

_ It was not to be, Ser Harrold. You'll have to continue waiting. _

Servants she didn't know brought food, bowing subserviently to her, the new lady of the castle.

_ Where is Sandor? _

“You waited for me here?” she wondered aloud about the adventures of the men of the Vale.

“First we headed to the Wall in great haste,” Bronze Yohn sounded important and happier than usual. “You must have heard that the Seven Kingdoms are under attack from the white walkers, who woke after thousands of years. His Grace, King Aegon, called all banners.”

“We thought you were with him,” Robin continued boyishly. His cheeks were pink, healthy. “You weren't. His Grace told us he hadn’t yet returned for you as he’d promised, waiting for when war allows.” 

“After a great battle, in which we pushed away the enemy and gained a reprieve, His Grace sent us back with orders to recapture Winterfell,” Bronze Yohn beamed, proud of his battle prowess, satisfied that the knights of the Vale had finally left their hiding place, taking part in shaping the future of the realm.

"We had thought to storm the walls," Robin explained dreamily, examining a tiny drawing in his shaky hand.

Sansa was curious to see what it represented, but her cousin hid it in his pocket as soon as she tried to lean over.

Bronze Yohn burst into speech again. "But then the scouts gave us news of your arrival. We also caught a Bolton spy. The bastard wanted you as his new hostage. We hid extremely well, waiting. You were brave, my lady, riding to the door and asking him to open it. You did better than if we had agreed to the ruse beforehand."

"It was my duty," Sansa murmured, finding joy in the compliment, beginning to feel useful in conquering her own castle, and much less mad.

Though not very brave…

"What of the girl this bastard married?" she inquired quietly.

"Her name is Jeyne Poole, and she's alive on the Wall," Robin said, caressing the pocket with the drawing. "She doesn't say much more. She was hurt and will need time to heal."

_ Jeyne. Alive. Alive, alive, alive… _

“The direwolf came with you from the Wall?” Sansa guessed.

Ghost lay silently on the floor. His ears pricked again; his eyes were alert.

"Wasn't there a young man with him?” She questioned impatiently, nervously, not measuring her words. “Jon Snow? Lord Commander of the Night's Watch? Have you seen him?”

Her brother had been with her in the land of the dying. She hoped he'd returned from it, like she had.

Robin's face filled with awe. "He's a hero now. They say he rose from the dead after being murdered by his peers, and marched beyond the Wall to challenge the Grat Other in a single combat… Ravens brought news that he slayed the monster and is now returning... The king and his aunt, Princess Daenerys, have flown North to meet him. He’s especially  important to them for some reason. No one knows why..." 

_ Jon. Alive, alive, alive. _

She wasn't the only one. 

"The white wolf… He came with the wildlings who'd accompanied us. A few of them were the bastard's prisoners. They look ghastly! See!" Robin pointed to the far end of her hall where a bunch of  _ wild _ looking men and women blew  _ horns  _ and played pipes, embracing a dirty man and four women in their midst. The liberated captives looked as if they had been tortured.

"Then they are welcome to celebrate in my hall," Sansa murmured courteously.  _ Wildlings, truly?  _ The world must be changing if they rode together in peace with the men from the Seven Kingdoms…

An unknown knight from the Vale stood up, not very sober, toasting to Sansa, mentioning marriage, saying it was what every beautiful lady wanted. A strong husband and babes.

And maybe it was.

But Sansa wasn't just any lady.

She felt guilty for betraying her Mother's lessons, but to marry out of duty and custom was simply dreadful. How could it ever lead to happiness? Her parents had been extremely fortunate to find love after they were married; an exception, rather than the rule.

Sansa wanted that anomaly for herself; to love, to be loved.

Was it her only childhood wish that hadn't changed?

She didn't know.

It was difficult to give a final answer about so many of her deepest inclinations.

Yet she had never even thought she  _ could _ marry the man she wanted before Sandor asked, believing that the choice would never be hers, no matter what she did.

_ Strong arms rule this world. _

She should  _ force  _ the outcome  _ she  _ wanted. She might fail, but at least she would have tried. 

She had no father, nor was there a  _ king  _ present to take that role. The nobles had let her take the High Seat. No one thought of putting her in a dungeon or accusing her of a crime she hadn't committed.

She would keep pretending that everything was as it ought to be; that she was the Lady of Winterfell, having a say in her own future.

When poor Aunt Lysa had been widowed, she refused suitors until Petyr came… And he wasn't as highborn… despite the titles bestowed upon him by the Lannisters...

She would say no with a flat face until the only suitor she desired presented himself.

_ Where are you, my love? _

He hadn't left her side for months, and now he was gone?

Doubt crept into her heart.

_ Did you leave now that I'm home and enjoying the illusion of safety? _

Her feet itched for the supper to end. She had to look for him; find out what she did wrong this time.

“Thank you, my lord, for your good wishes,” she answered the knight frostily. “But I am weary from long travel and illness that has diminished my beauty. I shall not consider marriage for many days.”

As she said that, a curtain moved in a dark corner of her hall, seven feet tall.

She stood up abruptly, nearly calling for him loudly.

He had heard… and now he would think the  _ worst _ of her, as he  _ always _ did when she had  _ no _ intention to give offence, especially not to him... He would think she told him  _ no.  _ She was tired of him thinking ahead, thinking for her. And yet, she… he… his soul… his scars… it meant....

If she could hurt him so by misspeaking… it meant… it had to…

He couldn't stop loving her, could he?

He had to care for her deeply.

He couldn't  _ leave,  _ could he?

She should go against her upbringing and ask him herself. Then shut up, fret, fear, and wait until  _ he  _ answered.

_ Marry me, my love. _

“But when Lord Rickon arrives-” Lord Glover offered.

“Rickon?” Sansa’s heart was large like an aurochs’, forgetting Sandor for a moment.

_ Can it be? _

“A raven came for lord... for the bastard of Bolton before his demise. Or rather, for Lord Stannis, but Ramsay had caught it. Lord Davos is travelling from the White Harbour to Winterfell with young Lord Stark in tow. He is first in line of succession,” the nobleman added, with a suspicious eye on Sansa, studying her reaction.

“Of course he is,” Sansa agreed. “But I, his sister, shall remain at his side. He… he is seven now. Do you not agree that this is just?”

Rickon would have authority to make a match for her… her baby brother. He could be easily influenced by any false friend trying to win his trust in exchange for his lordly favours.

Like Sansa was befriended by Queen Cersei. 

She thought of seven feet tall curtains, of time that was running through her fingers, of Jon, of Rickon, of Arya, of… Bran… why not if Rickon was alive? They were together when Theon supposedly killed them…

The imposing door of the Great Hall bursting open… the commotion… the inferno of yellow flames…

"The dragon!"

"By the old gods!"

"Others take me!"

Sansa pressed forward amidst the exclaiming crowds.

Maester Colemon rushed in with a letter. "For… for the Lady Sansa."

The hall was silent as never before.

She was a Stark in Winterfell, and she received a letter delivered by a dragon.

She opened it with poise, striving to control  _ extreme  _ nervousness.

_ Aegon? _

It wasn't. The letters were small and flowery, distinctively feminine. Sansa devoured the tiny, elegant words.

_ "Lady Sansa, _

_ We haven't met, but I have heard many words of praise about you from my beloved nephew, Aegon… _

Sansa skipped hastily through the paragraphs about Aegon, his upcoming  _ marriage, _ the war, the realm, and the need for soldiers, to the very end of the letter, concerning  _ her _ family.

_ …Jon Snow… who made a difference in this war, by defeating the king of our enemies beyond the Wall… said before that you… he had a vision of you, and saw you doing something in a dream, which he later had to do in life… _

_ Would you know more, my lady? I would be anxious to hear from you about it. _

_ He has been asleep since then, like dead; though I hope, I pray that he would wake, for he isn't gone, not truly…  _

_ His heart is beating. _

_ I would be very grateful for your counsel on this and on other pressing matters. _

_ Sincerely, _

_ Princess Daenerys Targaryen. _

Sansa was caught in a whirlwind of emotions. Were the visions during her brush with death… true? Could she have been an  _ example _ to Jon? She had thought it the other way around. But he had been  _ behind _ her then… Had he been watching when she slew a monster on his throne? After that frightening ordeal ended, she saw Jon beginning a march towards that same castle where she’d defeated her foe. She’d wished to warn her brother not to, but he was already gone… Had she at that moment truly seen Jon when he rode to war? Not only in a dream or in… in the antechamber of death, as she’d believed?

_ If that were true, then… Then... _

_ There are gods and there are true knights too. All the stories can't be lies. _

The shape of the last lines in the letter drew Sansa's attention once more. In the section about Jon, the writing was different. Dense. Less perfect. Rushed. Nervous.

This unknown princess trembled over Jon's health like Sansa now fretted in advance over Sandor's unpredictable moods... Or from the sound of his beloved voice when he talked to her...

Sansa's heart went to another lady in trouble, forgetting her own.

"A pen and a parchment," she demanded. "And a raven, if there is one in Winterfell."

"The… the dragon is waiting, my lady. For the… for the answer I presume." The maester's breeches were suspiciously damp under his tunic.

No one dared refuse her. Stationery was brought immediately. She didn't have to use deceit to obtain it, like in the Vale…

Sansa wrote back a few simple words. Only what was important. Not having time nor patience for courtesies. Those would come back to her on the morrow.

_ Talk to my brother, Your Grace. Every day. A lot. Begin now. He may not understand, but he may hear you. He may wake, gods willing. Trust me, please. As if I was your sweet sister, and not only his. _

_ Concerning the matters of the realm, I shall write more shortly, on my honour as a Stark. _

_ With the assurances of my highest consideration, _

_ Lady Sansa Stark. _

Thinking how her old dreams of Sandor and the kiss she'd imagined also felt  _ devastatingly _ real, she walked out to see that dragon. It wasn't the white one Aegon rode, but a big black one.

Air smelled of sulphur. Tiny orange flames sparkled from the great black maw into the night.

Sansa found the animal beautiful, and couldn't be afraid.

Cautiously, she stuck her letter in a silky yellow pouch attached to the dragon's paw, where her letter must have been during delivery.

A scaled wing nearly toppled her over when the majestic beast spread them, taking flight…

_ What a glorious passing that would be… swept off by a dragon wing… _

When she returned to the table, deadly silence reigned. She realised that few men would have dared to rush blindly to an encounter with the dragon.

_ So be it. _

She'd let them think she was brave, in hope they would be loyal, rather than kill her.

Robert studied his drawing again, a clumsy pencil sketch he must have done himself, of a young, pretty  _ lady _ , with grey  _ scars  _ on one side of her face and neck.

He hid it under his plate when he noticed Sansa was back; pulling a lordly face, not blushing, hiding his new secret.

Sansa fought a smile, eager to stretch from ear to ear, hoping that the unknown lady would find it in her heart to love her cousin like Sansa never could.

Soon after, the hour was late. Her duties for the day ended amidst respectful bows, coughs and good-nights.

Ghost had fallen asleep next to the High Seat.

_ The wolves have returned. _

She could retire for the night.

On her own, freely, with no guards to hound her steps, able to look for her lover.

If only she could make him see that he should stay by her side once and for all!

If she could make him understand that no matter what she said or did, she truly loved him…

She wondered if she would find the man who saw  _ her _ , and not only himself… Who wiped the blood from her lip, caught her if she was about to fall, tightened a belt on her loose shirt…

Or if she would meet his sullen self over and over again, always at odds with the world, including  _ her _ ; pondering killing her if she failed to meet his expectations.

By the time she had searched the entire castle, her feet hurt, and she was convinced that everything was her fault.

She should have simply said yes to Sandor's proposal, like she should have told the truth to King Robert about his son Joffrey.

The king might not have blamed his son. The queen might have still gotten a wolf pelt. The strength of custom might yet prevent her marriage to Sandor. But at least she would have done her part.

Her eyes itched, tears threatening to fall.

Everything was her fault. For being weak, for being stupid, for acting too late, for fretting, for trusting the wrong people, for trusting people, for not being a true lady, for being wanton, for being too _much_ of a lady…

Despair choked her.

She was all alone and needed to breathe.

She staggered to the lichyard, to Lady's grave, or what she thought to be her wolf's final resting place, with freshly tilled earth. Too small for a man or woman grown. There was no name, no mark. Maybe it was a child killed by Theon or the Boltons, maybe it was...  _ Bran _ … In the event that only Rickon had survived the sack...

A sharp knife of fresh grief for the family she lost was stuck in her throat, piercing it.

She stumbled into the crypts, to her Father's grave, wondering if his bones, sent North by the Lannisters, had ever arrived. His likeness in stone was unfinished. A stone mason who knew Father had to be found, to continue his work. If one still lived… Next to him there was an empty niche for Robb...

Sansa sat on the cold floor and wept until her tears dried out.

There was only one place left to visit.

Her last refuge, her last hope, wasn’t far.

She exited the crypts and sleepwalked to the entrance of an ancient precinct in the open air, bolting the door behind her.

xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx

She found her lover in the godswood, sprawled next to the pool of dark water in front of the heart tree; his mangled, cherished face bathed in moonlight.

He stirred when she approached and he…

…stank.

She hadn't felt that  _ acrid _ smell on him for years, not in  _ that  _ quantity.

Of sour red wine, dark like blood.

All a man needed… Or was it a woman?

She couldn’t remember clearly.

Her thoughts and fears were repetitive, circular, turning like a giant wheel about to crush her. She was unable to stop them.

"I knew you'd come," Sandor rasped doggedly, struggling to sit up, uncoordinated. “You always lied about going to pray in the capital. Maybe tonight you’ll do it in truth. The  _ Lady  _ of Winterfell.”

_ Drunk.  _

_ Contemptuous. _

He’d gotten drunk once in the Vale, before duelling his brother, but not this much.

He would bark at her, he would. She had no doubt. She wanted to cry and couldn't. A stone was in her throat. A pain in her heart.

Father never yelled at Mother for misspeaking. Maybe Mother never spoke poorly or gave unwitting insult. Mother was perfect, like Sansa would never be.

Father was different. Cold and reserved by nature in most circumstances, he was often openly warm in the circle of his family.

By contrast, Sandor's aloofness was a well-practiced act, a lie; a survival trick, perhaps, like her own submissiveness at Joffrey’s court. His warmth was stormy, restless, like himself, always on the move _.  _ All his spontaneous reactions were like this… Thunderous… She loved him for his… passionate nature. But she couldn't handle him well when he was… truly awful. In the past, this caused her unease and reticence, and now it provoked both anger and terrible  _ hurt,  _ because if they loved each other, how could he treat her so?

Reaching the bottom of her despair, Sansa understood the reason for her troubles. 

She couldn't make Sandor cross the chasm that sometimes opened between them; of anger, uncertainty and doubt.

If he couldn't bridge that distance, if he wouldn't come to  _ her, _ from being caught in the web of his life, his beliefs, his past, her love would be for naught. 

Insufficient to bring him over. 

Superfluous.

She stretched her hands forward nonetheless.

Love was all she had to offer, unable to change the world.

She would blame herself afterwards, for not being able to appease him, after having seen what they could be together.

A miracle, lost.

He didn't take her offer.

Her hands dropped; useless, rejected.

Just like when Joffrey refused her attentions after Nymeria bit him.

A woman's love couldn't make a man respond to her…

And the other way around… Sandor's heartfelt confession in the Eyrie would have fallen on deaf ears, just like Sweetrobin’s, if there hadn't been already a seed of her own care for him… surging freely, streaming on its own accord, like a river springs from the mountain, or a waterfall rushes down the cliff, breaking on the rocks…

_ Alyssa's Tears. _

Neither she nor the Mother above could gentle the rage in Sandor's soul.

He had to do it himself, over and over again.

Despite knowing she might be doomed to failure, Sansa offered him her hands again, wishing he would take them.

"Sansa," he said, covering his ears, to her surprise; a futile, confused gesture she’d never seen him do. "I knew you'd come," he repeated; arrogant, unconcerned, drunk…

"I looked for you everywhere," she sounded haggard, reproachful, already failing in all her efforts. "Where were you?"

"There's a fine winesink in Wintertown," he drawled, "I haven't seen you there. Might be you didn't look for me that much."

_ How can you say that? _

He staggered, seemingly very unstable on his feet.

She was next to him before she knew. He leaned on her, smiling his ugly smile; his stench vile and sickening.

The sour wine of Winterfell was inferior to the Dornish, judging by the smell.

He'd always caught  _ her _ in the past, and now she caught  _ him _ or he would have fallen face first into the pool.

Supporting him, she regretted it.

Maybe a cold bath would sober him up… 

Or offend the gods who stared at them mutely through the red eyes of the heart tree.

The leaves rustled, speaking about the past, the future.

Blades clashing, blood gushing, feasts, weddings, alliances and wars, babes being born, and the old buried…

She needed a true friend, a man who could help hold at bay her uncertainty and despair; her guilt and fear of failure. 

She needed a companion in her troubles, not only a strong arm that would keep her from falling.

A man who wouldn't abandon her and judge her severely, whenever she was too weak to achieve her goals of perfection.

Of happiness… of freedom… of just rule… As a Lady of Winterfell, or in any position where the blessing and the damnation of her birth might take her…

But who could give her what she sought? Who could understand her deepest wishes, if she was so often unable to see clearly within herself?

Perhaps no man could be what she wanted…

"The dogs, I had to kill them," he blurted, catching all her attention.

"What do you mean?" she murmured.

"The bastard, he trained them to be vile," Sandor's words poured out of him, like every time he was drunk. "Nothing could be done. They couldn't be saved like Gregor's horse. They were rabid. I killed them. It had to be done," he repeated.

"You didn't find joy in it?" she asked needlessly. Her heart melted for him.

So he got drunk because he was sorry for the dogs, not because he was angry with her.  _ She  _ was sorry for the dogs when she thought of it. "Nothing could be done?" she parroted, knowing herself to be stupid, not caring.

Sandor shook his head.

"So you drank," she surmised.

"Not for that reason, no," he retorted, sinking back into sullen silence.

"Is it me?" she wondered; worried, perplexed, miserable once more.

"You, this castle, the looks the men give me, the pity," he waved with a huge arm at his scars. "Since I killed Gregor, they all  _ know  _ it was my brother who disfigured me. I thought I could do it… I could charm them… into accepting me. I was a fool."

"I was afraid you left," she reminded him of her deepest fear. "If I love someone, they leave me. And the Stark bannermen aren't accepting me, despite my birth. Not yet. They're just afraid to oppose me because at this moment I appear powerful… And I also seem much more condescending towards their interests than the Boltons, from what I overheard in conversations during supper."

_ Weak, they think I'm weak. _

Yet Robin might leave her some of his army if she asked nicely, and she’d seen unfeigned, chivalrous admiration on some of the bearded faces of the Northmen she remembered.

She wasn't without support.

"I'll make it more difficult for you."

"A husband I hate will make it impossible," she reacted brusquely. “Maybe I’ll end up eating my fingers.”

_ Wait, Arya! _

"What about Arya, why did you never say-,"

"I did-"

"When?"

"In your sleep-"

"Did you tell me about your sister then as well?"

He’d mentioned the night before that he could take an oath on his sister's  _ grave _ ...

He stepped away, a boulder of grief and danger, seeming taller than his dead brother. "I did," his voice came forth strikingly small and thin. "I can't say more at this moment."

_ Will you cry? _

"You don't have to," Sansa reassured him. She didn't mean to pry or dishearten him... "But Arya-"

"-was alive and left Westeros a year ago. Is all I know."

"Why haven't you told me?"

"I was going to," he shrugged, "but there was never a right moment."

_ Arya. Alive, alive, alive… _

_ I'm not the only one… _

But her most intimate happiness didn't depend on her family anymore. She had to make her own home.

"You announced you wouldn't consider marriage for a time," he went to the point, always faster than her in calling troubles by their name.

"Is that why you're drunk?" she countered, her voice lowering, unrecognisable, older.

"No," he dismissed her.

"Is it because of the dragon?" she asked further, unable to see his reasons, needing to understand them in order to continue breathing.

It was the wrong thing to ask.

"What dragon?" he was irascible now. "I haven't seen a dragon. Has your prince returned for you? I’m drunk because I wanted to be sloshed. I like it better than the milk of the poppy Gregor used to drink to pass out. Why are you asking so many times? The lady doesn't like the smell?"

Her nose  _ was _ wrinkled with displeasure, Sansa realised.

"Does your noble nose hurt?" He continued mocking her.

_ My heart hurts. _

"No," Sansa replied quickly, wondering if she could live with the shame of proposing marriage to him now, if his hateful refusal would be her only answer. Or a careless remark to hop off and leave. 

Let him be. Let him drink. Let him hate the world at will.

She had letters to write. A castle to run. She had to survive the nobles and their intrigues, the Maesters and their poisons, the gods knew what else. She had to pray for her family, and wait for her siblings to return. She would write to Aegon, to swear fealty and offer an alliance, and to wish him joy in his future union with Princess Arianne Martell (hinted in his aunt's letter, if she still recalled correctly). She’d say she would be delighted to attend the wedding if she had the honour to receive their kind invitation. (In company of her betrothed… her husband… they should marry before Rickon arrived home if this could be arranged.) And she would send men to the Wall, to this new war, as many as were eager to go and could be spared… The Wardens of the North couldn’t be absent from a conflict involving their domain… Joining the Night’s Watch was considered noble by the Starks...

She cleared her throat. There was no point in delaying her humiliation, if that was her destiny. She had to be brave, crossing  _ her  _ part of the imaginary, flimsy bridge hanging above the chasm between them, hoping he could cross his. Hoping they would meet in the middle, entangled forever, heart and soul.

Opening her mouth-

"Marry me," he said.

-she never closed it, gaping like a little fish, unable to answer.

"Marry me," he repeated.

She was nodding, though she still couldn't speak.

She realised she was expecting him to help her, to nudge her in one direction, to say yes for her, in some way.

He wouldn't, wanting from her what she wanted from him, the knowledge that she had mastered  _ her _ temper, her insecurities and fears.

That she spoke her heart plainly instead of lying, or accepting him with a cold heart, feigning obedience to his wishes.

"Yes," she said. Her voice sounded hollow, frightened, untrue. She hated herself for it, wishing it were different, stronger, confident, womanly. What he wanted. What he needed to believe in her.

"Yes?" he questioned, needing more words.

She always had so many, and now she found none.

"I-"

"You what?"

His patience was nearing its end, and there it was, she saw it, the moment he became truly  _ angry _ , when she wasn't good enough, the moment he would despise her and dismiss her, despite that she had given him herself, more than once; every feeling in her soul, every inch of her body.

Everything.

Time stopped, silence reigned, the leaves of the tree rustled, water hummed in the pond, disturbed by the night breeze.

He surprised her, kissing her instead of becoming hateful; long and sound.

She didn't like it, but she let him.

Because she loved him...

_ Are you passing me your anger in a kiss? _

He had the taste of cold, acid wine, and she was happy when he stopped.

"I'll get another wine skin and ask you as many times as it takes to get a proper answer…" he murmured.

"And will you kill me if it's not what you want to hear?" Her question was unbidden, curious, and she regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth.

He began to disarm haphazardly, tossing away his swordbelt on which he carried a knife, shedding off the scabbard with the greatsword from his back.

"Drag it all out of my reach," he ordered. "Tie me if you wish. Or find some guards if you want, who can kick me out over my past transgressions. The boy, Old Royce, they'll help. I drank enough not to be a threat. A few of them will manage."

"Take your weapons back," she commanded, dismayed, insulted by his carelessness.

She wanted him to be able  _ not _ to resort to murderous thoughts and deeds when he was with her, even when he was fully armed.

To trust her no matter what she said, to talk to her calmly if she gave offence, to set aside his mindset of a killer when they were together.

She didn’t want it to be necessary to tie him or disarm him when he was in a foul mood in order to feel safe.

He retrieved his sword.

Drawing it with great speed and precision, despite being  _ drunk,  _ he pressed it on her throat, like before. "Is this what you want?" His voice was deadly cold.

She stiffened, feeling frozen, chilled to the bone. Her nightmare was back. She hated the touch of men. Her captors dictated her fate. Her lover was her butcher, and she never saw it coming.

Violence was all there was, undeserved, unwanted, unavoidable.

"No," she answered, collapsing inwardly, melting.

A treacherous tear fell. One, then another.

_ Why can't you understand? _

At times he saw through her better than she understood herself, and on other occasions he was more mistaken about her than the courtiers who looked  _ through  _ the insipid traitor’s daughter.

If only she understood herself better, then maybe she could make him see-

"Yes, I want to marry you," she finally confessed; drained, defeated, ruined by love, sensing cold steel against her pulse. "I haven't stopped thinking about it since the first time you asked. I think… I believe that we might be able to enforce our will in this matter if we’re careful and clever… I’ve been thinking about how we could arrange it since I entered the Great Hall tonight. The moment is opportune… History is brewing in the Seven Kingdoms. The players… the pawns… They aren't the same. The rules of the game are changing. We should act soon. Before Rickon is lord and I only his marriageable sister."

He laughed raucously. "You truly are stupid, aren't you? Not even  _ dogs _ love a hand that beats them."

This was a very cruel thing to say.

Her pulse trembled against his blade. She didn't know whether she was grateful or sad that his drunken arm was so well trained in swordsmanship that it never shook from holding it.

"I don't love it. I hate when you do this." She’d repeat everything to him now, not caring if he saw her as an empty-headed bird or if she'd told him all this before. "I hated every time you mocked me when I was a child, not understanding  _ half  _ of what you said. I abhor when I am treated like… like an animal to be manhandled and led around… despite kicking and screaming. I  _ hate _ having to feign submission. I want… I want the other you. I fell in love with… with the man who heard my song and left me alone… unharmed… I longed for  _ that _ man to come back, not for the one who attacked me over my innocence… I know, I know, they are one and the same! I'm not asking you to be someone else… because I would hate that too! I don't want you to be the Knight of Flowers… I want you to be you… And I hope that I can learn to accept this part of you…. If you can't be otherwise, or find it in your heart to always be kind. Am I so stupid? You tell me."

She felt like they had the same useless conversation so many times before… She had nothing more to tell.

He sheathed his sword mechanically, hauling the scabbard on his back once more. Cinching his swordbelt with practiced gestures, he remained armed in her presence. 

Calm as a dove.

Lost.

"I hate myself for this, every time," he admitted, burned lips thinning, scars twitching madly, eyes stormy and grey. "Understand, Sansa, I couldn't… after seeing you as the Lady of Winterfell, and bloody sers toasting to your marriage, I knew my time was up... I couldn't delay any longer… Or someone else would take over. I couldn't let my chance slip through my fingers… but I didn't know if I could bring myself to ask you to marry me again so soon if I stayed sober. I always… I always told you more when drunk. Hateful things… but not only… right?”

He stared at her with a questioning gaze.

“No, not only,” she hummed, pulling a long hair out of his eye instinctively. "You have your answer," she continued, melody and softness returning to her voice. Her heart felt warmer, beating carefully. "Is it the one you wanted?"

"Can I disarm now?" He asked for her permission, sounding ashamed, perhaps.

"If that is your wish," she conceded, offering him her hands for the third time, looking timidly into his face.

Fingers intertwining, fine and craggy ones knitted together.

The man she loved existed in truth. She didn't invent him. He was returning now… or rather, had never been entirely gone, just buried deep under the Hound’s mask. Or else she would have been dead by now; one of the many nameless victims of the Blackwater Battle, ruined beyond recognition.

He was here. Hearing her. Listening to her in his loneliness. Coming out of his shell. Crossing that tiny, imagined bridge leading towards her on his own…

Over and over again.

"You were right about the boy,” he rasped quietly, nervously caressing her palms. “He’s grown. And he surely has a weakness for older girls. He met Stannis’ daughter on the Wall and proposed marriage to her. Her mother couldn’t say yes without Stannis’ permission. Now she might.”

“He has a drawing of her,” Sansa mentioned, giddy about Robin’s happiness; her curiosity finally satisfied with Sandor’s explanation.

“He made it himself,” her betrothed confirmed what she'd already thought. 

“He also has a soft spot for scars,” Sansa murmured, blushing.

“There’s more,” Sandor declared stonily, ignoring the mention of scars.

_ You will believe me one day, will you? _

Had he been handsome, she would have never averted her eyes. He wouldn't have provoked her to look at him.

She wouldn't have seen further than his face. She wouldn't have started to fear for him... to have him in her thoughts… or in her heart.

She might have missed her chance for happiness...

His hands nearly broke hers from how tense he was. “The boy wants to give me some lands," he stated with feigned indifference. "They should be pretty and cold, like yours. Near the buggering waterfall. No one wants them because people are credulous, and Alyssa was cursed. They're not very big, but few can compare to yours…"

_ What are you saying? _

“Do you…” She prayed she wasn't mistaken in her assumptions. “Do you want to build me a home?”

He looked down and then into her eyes, shrugging.

“You do? That is… That's lovely!” she exclaimed. “But,” she frowned gently, “do you not want to return… to your sister's grave?" she dared ask. “Where the three dogs died in yellow grass?”

He had his dead as well. His crypts.

He was silent, uptight. "I might. For a visit,” he added quickly. “But would you? It's far away and it's not pretty, even before Gregor, who must have ruined it. He had two wives and killed them both. I don't know what's there. I should… I should claim my grandfather's lands, I suppose. For the leg he lost, for the dogs that died…"

"Why wouldn't I go there? One day?" Sansa fantasised about seeing that yellow grass and the high walls of his keep.

"You would accompany me?"

"It would please me," she confessed, curious, intrigued, ignoring the memory of Ser Gregor, pitying his dead wives. "You've been to my home twice. Should I not see yours?"

"If you say so," he sounded very uncertain, and maybe a bit open to the notion. After a little while, he announced decisively, "I'll take the boy on his offer and let the little falcon call me  _ ser _ , if your northern gnats will then overlook what and who I am, and let me have their lady."

"You’re my future  _ lord _ husband," Sansa teased him a little, feeling… light. Healed. Saved for the time being.

"Not a lord," he said, defensively.

Was it him, parroting himself? A very  _ large _ bird from the Summer Isles, empty-headed like herself.

Hope crept into Sansa's heart, unstoppable.

On an impulse, she squatted. The black lake was cold, but much less so than snow.

“Come,” she said, standing up, dragging him with her by the hand.

He strolled after her, heavy like a boulder, rolling.

Another pool was nearby, in the direction of the old guest house, a hot spring. A rarity in Seven Kingdoms, to be found only in Winterfell and on Dragonstone.

Boots were unnecessary.

A hem of the dress lifted high. A soft woollen sock, prised off slowly. Her slim foot, teasing the bubbling surface of the spring, drawing circles on it, splashing. The simple joy of her young years, returned to her.

A gulp, in the darkness. A far more intriguing sound than a cold-hearted rasp.

His weapons, abandoned with his garments.

A secret, shared.

A peck on her lips, a brief one, thankfully. Saving both her and him from suffering the pain of rejection, due to his continued poor scent.

Hands on her back, unlacing.

An ache; fresh, persistent, weakening.

Splotchy, sprinkling water.

A dress, one of the few she had, possibly ruined, set aside. Her hair in a knot on top of her head, not to become wet.

Carelessness. Immersion.

A fantasy of being - inside the waterfall.

_ Alyssa’s Tears. _

A man’s closeness, wanted, dreaded, longed for. Too much too bear. Too little.

Yearning.

A breast, teased thoroughly. The narrowing of her waist grasped, held tightly.

A skin much darker than her own revealed under moonlight. The ugly smell of wine slowly replaced by another, sharp and yet sweet, born of embraces. The curve of a hard muscle under her lips. The harshness of a shoulder bone. A behind much firmer than her own, caught by surprise under her roaming fingers.

The absence of fear. The freedom. No sides. Levity. No laying on her back. 

No duty.

Time.

Standing together. Floating. Flowing. 

His manhood in her hands, his touch in her folds.

A long, deep kiss, tasting of warm water.

A need to dry, after night swimming. Clumsiness. Small laughs. Raspy. Giggly. His tunic as her towel. Her hair moist, despite the knot, now loosened, spilling over her back. His hair,  _ soaked _ . Him, wringing it out.

A murmur in her ears. A room in the guest house he'd found for himself. Just above the pool, overlooking it.

The entrance to the guest house… Outside the godswood. Too far. She can't possibly! Not like this. Dishevelled. Heat in her face. What did she think she was doing?

The  _ wall _ of the guest house. Rough masonry. A stairway. Dangerous. Or not truly. Not as high. A possibility.

Huge hands on her waist, lifting her up. Climbing up the wall in a damp gown. Childish. Improper. Her, not caring. Him, humming with approval, clambering behind her. A stone becoming loose and falling, from his weight. A roll, a thud, a tiny avalanche.

Her, already up, at the open window, glancing down at him, concerned, needlessly.

Him,  _ catching up _ , cursing, helping  _ her _ to crawl over the windowsill.

Her, wondering why he'd let the window open in this cold, shivering madly from the chill. He couldn't have known they’d do this.

Fire,  _ blazing _ in the hearth, answering her query, perhaps.

Him, closing the window, for  _ her _ .

A much poorer bed than in the lord’s chamber in the Eyrie. A featherbed nonetheless. Dry and warm.

A sign of Winterfell, surviving and preserving its riches, despite everything.

Like her, like him.

Enduring adversity.

Conversation without words. Long due. Easier to pursue without the sweet distraction of water. Incredibly gentle at first. A sincere apology, if there ever was any.

Given…

And accepted.

Then… Hands becoming more daring. Lips more demanding. Embraces more intense.

Wondrous.

The greatsword of her true knight forgotten in the godswood.

The distant face of the heart tree, smiling.

 

**THE END** ****

 

This story is now complete and it represents my best shot at conveying the essential about two fictional book characters, in a story format.

SanSan in a nutshell ;-))

There could be an epilogue in September, exploring how characters might react when significantly older, after years of living together. This depends a bit on how shocked I will be (or not) by the show summaries this summer ;-))

The music that goes with the very end of this last chapter could be Once Upon a Time in the West by Ennio Morricone.

Dear, clever readers,

Have a great summer.

Thank you so much for reading and sharing your views with me.

It has been a pleasure ;-)))


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